


Hecate's Kin

by GeorgieHaast



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Demigods at Hogwarts, Multi, Prophecy, solangelo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:45:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 51,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeorgieHaast/pseuds/GeorgieHaast
Summary: "Five of the elements four combineWith the great desires of all our timeWith one who changes and one now freeTo worlds which they have yet to seeThe land which now holds Hecate's kinIs where the quest should soon beginTo learn new ways and make friendsOr cause a war to make worlds end"The war with Gaia is over and the Demi-gods are settling down for a normal life. But when a new prophecy arrives sending them to Hogwarts, will they be able to keep their true identities hidden from the Golden Trio?  And when an old acquaintance turns against them, will they be able to stand together and win?





	1. Lost Friends and Prophecies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually wrote this story ages ago back when I used to use Wattpad! I decided to put it here as well just so all of my stuff was in one place - hope you enjoy!

Percy’s POV

I was sitting on the beach with Annabeth. My feet were in the water and my hand was in hers. Neither of us were speaking but I still found her presence comforting. The war had finished just over 2 weeks ago and I still couldn't believe we'd won, I should've been happy but I still felt like Leo's death was on my shoulders. I should've done something to save him, anything.  
"It's not your fault you know," Annabeth said as if she could read my mind. "We're having the funeral tonight and he wouldn't want you to blame yourself. It was his choice." She squeezed my hand comfortingly.  
"I know," I said squeezing her hand back. "It's just hard, we spent so long together, all seven of us and now Frank and Hazel are going off to camp Jupiter tomorrow, Jason is going to be traveling around building shrines to the minor gods and Leo is..." I choked on the last word, unable to say it.  
"We should go," she said standing up and giving my hand another squeeze. "We don't want to miss the ceremony."

Over the past week and a bit, we'd been burning all the dead from the battle. Although the battle had been short, there were still many fatalities and the Apollo cabin had been working overtime on the injured. Leo was the last one to be burned, being the only one of the seven to die and the one who all in all managed to finally finish Gaia. At first we had hoped that he'd somehow taken the physicians cure, but with no one there to give it to him how could he have done and anyway, Nico had felt his death. But a small part of me still felt that he wasn't telling the whole truth.  
I still couldn't fully understand Nico, he'd changed so much since I first met him, he'd gone from the scared little mythomagic playing kid who lost his sister to the creepy antisocial hades kid who somehow faced Tartarus alone to now. I'm not quite sure what now is but he seems happy. He's got lots of friends and is finally staying put for once. The other day he told me that he had once had a crush on me which had kind of explained a lot. It was awkward at first cause I'd been almost certain the he had a thing for Annabeth but he seemed to be over me now and after he'd said it he'd gone off to see Will Solace and seems to have been in the Apollo cabin ever since. No clue what that's about, I asked Piper the other day but all she did was laugh.

Annabeth’s POV

Everyone was coming into the clearing in the middle of the circle of cabins for Leo's ceremony. We didn't have his body so the Hephaestus cabin had piled up the remains of the Argo II and covered that with a shroud instead. The shroud was beautiful, it was chain mail but some how it was as light as silk and whenever it caught the light it looked like it was on fire. The way it fell on the pile, I could almost imagine that Leo was under there. As much as I told Percy that Leo's death was no ones fault I still felt like I could have done something to stop it, after all I'm meant to come up with all the plans being a daughter of Athena. But I hadn't even been smart enough to realize what he was going to do until it was too late.  
But mourning won't bring him back. He'd want us to move on with our life's and that's what I'm planning to do. When the summer is over, I'm going to go to New Rome with Percy like he kept saying he wanted to and we can have normal lives there away from the chaos of monsters, immortal deities and her royal annoyingness Queen Hera who I don't think I'll ever forgive.  
I walked to the front of the crowd with Percy where we had reserved seats along with the remainder of the seven, Nico, Thalia and Rachel Elizabeth Dare. The only other three important members of the war weren't in attendance: Reyna had returned to Camp Jupiter almost straight away so as to keep the legion in order by herself until Frank came to join her; Coach Hedge was in the woods with Mellie looking after baby Chuck and of course Leo was the reason we were here anyway.  
Jason was walking up to light the funeral pyre but paused when a glowing hammer appeared above it, a blessing from Leo's father showing that he was watching. I smiled, it was rare that the gods showed care towards their children, it would've made Leo happy to know his dad had noticed him. I could hear a few people crying behind me as Jason continued to walk forward with the torch but he was once again stopped by Rachel Elizabeth Dare who had suddenly gone rigid and was giving off green mist. When she spoke it sounded like there were three of her speaking, but we all knew it wasn't really her, the oracle of Delphi was giving another prophecy

 

"Five of the elements four combine  
With the great desires of all our time  
With one who changes and one now free  
To worlds which they have yet to see  
The land which now holds Hecate's kin  
Is where the quest should soon begin  
To learn new ways and make new friends  
Or cause a war to make worlds end"

I lowered Rachael back into her chair as she collapsed at the end of the prophecy. I looked over at Percy, another prophecy could ruin all of our plans for a normal life together. Everyone was suddenly talking about what the prophecy could mean until Chiron came to the front and called for silence. "As you have heard, we now have a new prophecy. I would normally call for a counsellors meeting to discuss the quest but as it sounds like it will involve many people it may be better if we discuss it now while everyone is here." He looked around to check the everyone approved and then continued: "So, does anyone have any ideas."  
I might have been wrong, but I felt like Chiron looked at me for ideas so I raised my hand and spoke "We should work out who's going first," I said. "By the sounds of it there will be 10 of us: the five element people; the three desires; the one who changes and the one now free." I looked to Chiron who nodded so I continued. "The 3 greatest desires which I can think of are wisdom, beauty and riches so that means Athena, Hades and Aphrodite."  
Nico raised his hand to interrupt me and Chiron nodded at him to speak "how is Hades riches, all I can do is raise the dead?"  
"Not so much Hades," I replied, "but Pluto. Hazel can control precious metals and jewels which basically covers riches."  
Now it was Jason's turn to interrupt: "So those three should be you Piper and Hazel." I heard Drew mutter something about favouritism towards Piper but Jason ignored her and continued. "The one who changes is obviously Frank, I mean he can literally change into other animals. And that just leaves the four elements and the freed one."  
"The elements are the easy part," Frank butted in. "The four elements are Fire, Water, Earth and Air. So water means Percy, Earth is Nico I'm guessing as Hades' realm is under the Earth. I think there are two for Air because both Jason and Thalia are sons of Jupiter." I heard Thalia mutter something which sounded rather like 'It's Zeus' under her breath but Frank either didn't notice or care, "so that just leaves fire which must just be someone from the Hephaestus cabin." He looked hopefully in the direction of the cabin 9 campers.  
"I hate to burst your bubble," said Jake Mason, one of the Hephaestus kids, "but none of us can actually control fire. The only one who could do that was..."

And that's when the enormous metal dragon fell out of the sky.


	2. Greetings and Accusations

Leo’s POV

I love my life. The war is over, dirt face is dead, I'm flying along on my newly fixed pet dragon and I have the girl of my dreams with her arms round my waist sitting behind me. WHO'S THE FREAKIN' SUPERSIZED McSHIZZLE?!!!  
Sadly, that was when my flying machine decide it didn't like flying anymore. It much preferred falling, probably better described as crashing.  
Calypso's grip tightened around my waste as I began frantically pulling at the wires in Festus' head. "Is it meant to be doing this?" She shouted over the roar of the wind.  
"Crashing?" I laughed, she really didn't get modern technology. "Yep, all in a normal day." Then I turned my attention back to the dragon. "For Hephaestus' sake Festus. Gods I wish I could charm speak you back to life like Piper, it would be so much easier." My hands were working furiously on the wiring, flying to my tool belt for the equipment I needed (which was lots) until, just as the ground was coming into the view and I could see camp half blood below... "Yes Festus," I shouted punching the air as we began to rise again. Wait didn't I just say I saw camp half blood below. Oh My Gods.   
"Calypso," I shouted over my shoulder, "How do you fancy meeting my friends?" She didn't say anything, just nodded so I steered Festus down to ground, jumped off and walked towards...   
Wait, was that a funeral pyre? Who died?  
"Leo?" I heard Piper's voice over my shoulder. She sounded like she was crying probably over the funeral I'd just crashed. I was half way through asking who had died when someone very rudely decided to slap me in the face.  
"Where in hades have you been Valdez?" Jason shouted. "It's been 2 whole weeks. All we know is that Festus goes up in flames and you’re suddenly gone with no one to give you the physician's cure. We thought you were dead!" Gods he was angry, electricity was sparking off him, literally.  
"I...um...wait, have I just crashed my own funeral?" Not something even I do every day. Styx, if I didn't think of something sensible to say soon then I would have an angry son of Jupiter on my hands and, by the looks of the person coming up behind him, an angry son of Poseidon as well. Double Styx. I braced myself for another slap and it came, but not to me.  
"Perseus Jackson, where have you been?" Gods Calypso was scary when she was angry. Even Percy who is the bravest Demi-God I know looked frightened. "How long ago did you leave Ogygia? Did you get your memory wiped on the way out because I thought that you promised to make the Gods free me?! But no, I had to wait what felt like several more eternities for a new hero to free me!!!" She paused, looking sadder. "Have you even thought of me since you left?"  
Obviously Percy was better under pressure than I was because, although he looked guilty, he could at least still speak. "Of course I thought of you. I asked the Gods to forgive all of their enemies which included you I just didn't follow through because I trusted them to do it. Until Leo returned from Ogygia I didn't know you were still there." Calypso didn't seem convinced so Percy continued, becoming angrier. "You obviously thought of me I noticed. I never did thank you for that curse you gave Annabeth after she'd killed the Arai in Tartarus. You know, the one where I had to watch her wondering lost near the chasm of chaos and could do nothing, as if Tartarus wasn't bad enough already!"  
It was rare that Percy ever talked about what had happened in Tartarus, it just all sounded so horrible. I’d never really seen Percy get angry but Gods it was scary, his eyes seemed to literally change colour from their usual calm sea green to stormy grey and I could’ve sworn that the ground shook slightly. When Percy was finally finished, he looked at Calypso. She was crying. His face calmed down and his eyes went back to normal. “I'm sorry," he said quietly, placing a hand on her shoulder. "That was harsh of me."  
"It's fine," she replied softly. "I deserved it, what I did was, wrong. I was just so angry and..."  
"I know," Percy interrupted. "I should've fought harder for you. Maybe we should just forget everything that happened before now." She nodded. "Okay then, I'm Percy Jackson, pleased to meet you." He smiled as he held out a hand  
"Calypso," she smiled, wiping her eyes as she shook his hand, "lovely to meet you as well."

 

Calypso’s POV

It was so nice to have fixed things with Percy. I still felt a small bit of affection towards him still, but nothing compared to Leo. Everything seemed perfect until a blonde girl with silver-grey eyes placed a hand on Percy's shoulder. "And who are you," I asked although I had already guessed the answer  
"Annabeth Chase," she said sticking out her hand like Percy had done. "But the more important question is who are you, and how do you know my boyfriend?" Gods she was protective. Not in the usual, insecure 'please don't steal my boyfriend' kind of way, more of a 'I'm highly suspicious and think you might be a spy trying to seduce and kill my boyfriend so if you take one step out of line I can and will snap your neck'. That sort of protective.  
"Calypso," I said taking her hand, her hand shake was as strong as iron. "I know Percy from Ogygia where he left me alone many years ago because he wanted to be with you." A part of me wanted her to feel guilty but she didn't seem to notice, just nodded and withdrew her hand.  
"Ok," then she cracked into a smile when she saw Leo. "I would warn you that he's taken but it looks like you are too." We both laughed but then her smile faded again and Leo got his second slap of the evening, "and Valdez, don't you dare pull off a stunt like that again."

Leo’s POV

Gods there were a lot of grumpy people. I still don't get people sometimes, I'd come back hadn't I and it had only been, what, a week, maybe two. But there was no point fussing over it, they'd calm down I said to myself and decided that I should deal with something I did understand. Festus. By the time Calypso had finished talking/arguing with Annabeth and Percy I'd managed to completely fix the wiring fault he'd had earlier and hammer out the dent he'd gotten from the heavy landing. I was so busy that I didn't even notice the other members of the seven coming towards me until Anabeth had given me a similar greeting to Jason and a sobbing Piper had thrown herself at me. I didn't know what to do, so I just patted her on the back awkwardly.  
"I thought you were dead," she sobbed. "I thought it was all my fault, I'd just charmed Gaia to sleep and left you to blow yourself up. I should have done something, told you not to do it. I couldn't stand you being dead, none of us could." Gods she could make someone feel guilty without even trying to, I didn't know what to say but luckily Hazel took over.  
"But he's not dead," she said taking Piper's shoulder, "and so it doesn't matter if it was your fault, which it wasn't, anyway." Wow Hazel was good. So now Jason had released his rage and Percy and Annabeth had been dealt with by Calypso. Hazel had calmed down Piper and Frank was on the same wavelength as his girlfriend. Great.  
Nonetheless, I was glad for the opportunity to get away from the huge crowd when Chiron called for a councillors meeting to discuss my return and some new prophecy which had apparently been issued. So I told Festus to go have a rest and started heading towards the big house.

 

Chiron’s POV

To much was happening at the moment. First the prophecy and then Leo Valdez, his flying dragon and a mysterious girl had just turned up out of the blue. So I decided to call for a counsellors meeting, it would be much easier with fewer so people to get in the way.  
"First things first," I said once the head councillors were seated around the ping pong table along with Frank, Hazel, Jason, Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Leo’s mystery girl. "I'd like to welcome back Leo and, if he wouldn't mind, ask him to introduce his companion." I gestured towards the caramel haired girl sitting next to Leo.  
"My name is Calypso, daughter of Atlas" the girl said, a few murmurs spread round the room but she continued. "I have been trapped on Ogygia for eons since my father betrayed the Gods but my curse has finally been lifted." She smiled at Leo and leaned her head on his shoulder.  
"Wait a minute," said Annabeth on my right. "She's the 'one now free' from the prophecy. That's all ten people: Percy, Jason, Thalia, Nico, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Frank, Calypso and me."   
"Would someone mind explaining what in Hades everyone's talking about," Leo butted in looking from me to Annabeth to Calypso and back again. Annabeth quickly recited the prophecy and explained what we had figured out so far about the people. "Great," Leo continued, "Just like old times but what I still don't get is what is this land of Hecate's Kin or whatever you said."  
"An excellent question Leo Valdez," came a voice from behind me. "One which I intend to now answer.”


	3. Explanations and Shopping

Percy's POV

"Lady Hecate," Chiron said, sweeping into a bow, well as much as he could being a centaur. Everyone around the table copied except for the head counsellor of the Hecate cabin who just waved at her mum.   
"Thank you, Chiron," Hecate smiled. "I have heard the new prophecy and have come to explain further what your quest entails. I must first tell you about this other world which you are probably wondering about. Well, many years ago, there were four mortals named Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw. They were all practicers of magic and, although they did not worship any of the gods directly, they payed tribute to me in their own ignorant ways through their spells and potions. After watching them for a few years, I became attached to them and decided to indulge their fantasy by blessing them with real magic. Their powers are channeled through wands and, although they were, at first, very limited, they have grown in strength and numbers since."  
Hecate paused for a minute and I took the chance to ask a question we all wanted to know, "Not meaning to be rude, but how is this relevant to what we have to do on our quest?"  
"Patience, Perseus," Hecate smiled, ignoring my objections to my name. "As I was saying, I granted the four mortals with magic and told them to do with it as they wished. What they decided to do, was to set up a school to teach young followers of magic all that I had taught them. The school they set up is called Hogwarts," she ignored Leo's muffled laugh at the name and continued. "It is still running today, teaching young witches and wizards how to use and control their magic. However, they have recently had a war. A dark wizard named Voldemort turned against them and one boy had to save the day purely because it was written in a prophecy that he would, his whole life was determined by one small piece of foresight into the future." I could feel Lady Hecate looking at me as she said this but I couldn't bare to meet her eye. Just knowing that someone out there might have been through something like I had, like we all had. I was desperate to meet them. Hecate continued, "Now that their war is over, I wish to find out how their world is faring. Sadly, I cannot visit them myself. They may not worship me as a deity but my presence would cause a stir and I would not be able to observe their natural behaviour."  
"So that's it?" Asked Jason. "No monsters, no primordial deities to defeat? Just go to a school for wizards and witches and see how they're doing after a war. I'm not complaining, but isn't it a bit easy. And anyway, what about this ‘war to make worlds end’?”  
Hecate smiled again, she did that a lot. "You have just finished a war Jason Grace, even the Gods agree that you are due a rest. The war, as you mentioned, should not happen. The wizards are a powerful race and one which you would not wish to anger but I believe it would be hard for any of you to spark a fury in them great enough to start a war. So yes, that is it. I would, however, especially like you to befriend their child of the prophecy, Harry Potter. Keep an eye on him and his friends, it should be a nice rest for you all. And one last thing, you must not reveal your identities to them, as the prophecy said, if they decided that you were a threat it would not end well. Are there any questions?"  
Annabeth raised her hand and began talking without even waiting. "If we are going to fit in and mingle, won't they notice that we don't have magic?" As Annabeth said this, Hecate raised her hands and a golden light spilled over us all. I didn't feel any different afterwards but I guessed that we had just received Hecate's blessing.  
"I must be leaving now," Hecate said, lowering her arms. "Hermes shall deliver your wands to you tomorrow morning before you leave in the afternoon. Try to avoid trouble for once, some of them can see through the mist, Miss Levesque and Miss McLean, even your charm-speak will not be able to convince some of them. Chiron knows some more about the school so will hopefully be able to answer any extra questions. Good luck young demigods." She began to glow and we all looked away. When I looked back, she was gone.  
When Hecate had gone, I turned to Annabeth and smiled. "Maybe this quest won't be that bad. It won't completely ruin our plans for New Rome at least. Well still get to go to school together, even if it is a weird magical one." She laughed at that and then started questioning Chiron about the quest like the others were doing.  
Chiron explained that we would be leaving at mid-day tomorrow after receiving our wands. No one at the school would know what we actually were, they would just be told that we were exchange students from a school in America. He warned us that, although we were blessed with magic by Hecate, we would still have to learn and practise the incantations in order to appear normal. We would be travelling to London by Pegasi (except for Hazel who would take Arion and Jason who would take Tempest). When we got to London we would go to kings cross station and take the train to Hogwarts where we'd spend the year.  
It all sounded so easy, but I guess we really were due some calm after two great prophecies in a row.

Harry's POV (the next day)

*Crack*! Ginny apparated into the bedroom I was sharing with Ron. "Get up sleepy heads, Mum says we're leaving in ten minutes so if you want any breakfast then you should get it now." Ron jumped out of bed at the mention of food and ran downstairs. I got up more slowly and kissed Ginny on the cheek before apparating downstairs to join Ron.  
I'd been staying with the Weasleys all holiday and it had been great. There had been a lot of repairs but everything was almost back to normal now. Anyway, all of the seventh years from last year had been invited to return as eighth years because last year had been so disrupted. Ron, Hermione and I all really wanted to return for one normal year so had accepted the offer. The post owls had arrived yesterday telling us what we would need for the year. They also said that we would be having some exchange students from the HBCJ school of magic in America. None of us knew what to think about Hogwarts having exchange students, according to Hermione it had never happened before, but none of us had thought a huge amount of it.  
"Good morning dear," called Mrs Weasley as we began piling bacon and eggs onto our plates. "We'll leave for Diagon alley to meet Hermione and buy your stuff as soon as you two are ready, so chop chop."   
We both finished our breakfast and, in less than five minutes, were back downstairs, dressed and ready to go. Ginny looked at her mum for approval before turning on the spot and disappearing. All of us followed and, after the familiar yet still unwelcome sensation of being squished through a small plastic tube, we were standing in the crowded streets of Diagon Alley.   
“Harry! Ron! Ginny!” I heard a familiar voice calling through the crowd and turned to see Hermione running towards us. She hugged all of us and gave Ron a kiss on the cheek. He immediately turned bright scarlet and we all laughed. Mrs Weasley said that she was going to do some of her own shopping and that we should meet her in Fred and George’s shop when we had everything that we needed. She gave Ron the money he and Ginny would need and then turned on the spot and disapparated.   
“So where shall we go first?” Ginny asked.  
“We need new robes so we might as well start at Madam Malkin’s as we’re right next to it.” We all looked to where Hermione was pointed and then followed her inside.  
When we got inside, we saw a group of about 10 people trying on robes. A boy with messy black hair and sea green eyes came out from behind the screen in a set of black Hogwart’s robes as the rest of the group fell into fits of laughter.  
“Oh my Gods,” one of the girls, the one with blonde hair, laughed, “you look…” she started laughing again and pointed at the mirror by where we were standing. “Well just look for your self,” and then she started laughing again. The boy smiled at her and walked over to the mirror where he looked at himself before turning back to her.  
“I think the word you were looking for was ‘amazing’,” he grinned. “The black matches my hair and, if I may say so myself, beautifully compliments my eyes.” He batted his eyelids at her. The blond girl couldn't answer over her hysteria so he continued, turning to a pretty, cherokee looking girl: “Anyway, I think that Piper should be the one to judge fashion, so Beauty Queen, what do you think?” He put his hands on his hips and pouted, causing everyone to fall into hysterics again. He faked a frown and then turned to us. “Honestly, friends these days. So, what do you think of my robes.” He waited for a moment but carried on unfazed when we didn't reply. “I’m so sorry, where are my manners, I haven't introduced myself.” He swept into a theatrical bow and held his hand out me. “I’m Percy Jackson.” I took his hand and shook it without saying anything. He frowned, “I’m sorry, but who are you?”


	4. Wands and Diagon Alley

**Jason’s POV (before they left camp half-blood)**

 

It was the day after the meeting with Lady Hecate, or Lady Trivia or whatever we were meant to call her. Anyway, we were waiting outside the big house, just the 10 of us, for Hermes to deliver our wands. Chiron had announced at dinner the night before that the 10 of us would be going away on a quest for a long time. He didn't bother explaining to everyone where we actually going but just said that we would be away for a while. None of us had needed to say any goodbyes to anyone since the people we would have said goodbye to were all with us. Thalia had got Artemis’ approval for the quest but had been warned that ‘she would still be keeping an eye on any happenings in the love life of her new lieutenant!’ 

I was just starting to wonder if Hermes was actually going to arrive, when Will Solace from the Apollo cabin turned up. I was wondering what he was doing here, he didn't say anything to any of us, just walked up to Nico and slapped him across the face. It didn’t look like a hard slap, certainly not as hard as Will could’ve given but we were all still shocked.

“And why didn't you come and say goodbye?” he asked. Nico looked taken aback and slightly awkward. “Two weeks you spend bringing me snacks and helping out in the hospital and you think I’d let you just go away for a year without saying goodbye?” Nico still didn't say anything, he seemed to still be in a state of shock but Will suddenly smiled. “Your face,” he laughed. “How do you find it so hard to believe that you could have friends in this world? Anyway, my rant is over, just remember, no shadow travelling or underworldy  stuff while you're away. We wouldn’t want you fading away now, would we?”

“I guess not,” Nico said breaking into a smile, something I don’t think I’ve seen him do more than once or twice. “And Will, sorry I didn’t say goodbye.”

“It’s fine,” said Will, “But if you forget to IM me as well then you really will be sorry! I might get dad to come and read haiku’s at you for an hour or something.” We all laughed and I thought he was about to walk away but, instead, he pulled Nico into a hug and, as much as it amazed everyone, Nico didn’t push him away.

Sadly, however, Hermes chose this moment to interrupt, making Nico jump back in surprise, accidentally pushing Will over as he did so. Will got up, laughing, and walked back off to the infirmary as the rest of us turned round to face Hermes.

“Sorry I’m late,” he grinned “had some trouble with a delivery which someone wanted to send to the underworld, and I had to get Hades permission, but Zeus didn’t like it, and George and Martha didn’t want to go to the underworld, and then the recipient wasn’t in the underworld because they’d chosen rebirth and it was all very complicated and…”

“Not meaning to be rude, Lord Hermes,” I interrupted. “But we’re meant to be collecting wands from you.”

“Sorry, sorry,” he laughed. “I do go off on a lot of tangents, like once I was talking to Aphrodite and …” he paused. “I’m doing it again aren’t I. Anyway, here are your wands, hope you like them. There is a list of whose is whose and what they are inside the box. On the whole the wand is meant to choose the wizard but we took a bit of a guess with your guys, Hecate helped. Give them a wave when you get them just to check they work. On the whole, a sign of a good wand is that it’ll make something nice happen, like music or light. If it blows something up then it’s probably not right for you. If there are any problems then go and find a Mr Olivander in Diagon Alley when you get to London. I need to be going now, Zeus wants to deliver a special inhaler to Aeolus which Hephaestus made for him because he’s got a cough and it is making the weather go crazy. Bye!” and with that he disappeared, leaving a big box where he was standing.

 

**Piper’s POV**

 

Leo, being Leo, rushed over to the box immediately and started to rip it open. Inside were ten packages, one with each of our names on it and a list saying what type of wand everyone had. I quickly scanned the list, which Leo had thrown aside in his eagerness to see his wand. The list seemed to explain the wood and core which each wand was made of. A lot of people’s wands seemed to be based on their parent’s, but the types of wands did seem like they would suit their owners.

 

Annabeth - Olive tree and unicorn hair

Percy - Willow and unicorn hair (your wand is twinned with Annabeth’s)

Jason - Oak and eagle feather

Piper - Rosewood and veela hair

Frank - Aspen and vulture feather

Hazel - Hazel and moonstone

Leo - Ash and dragon heartstring

Calypso - Birch and crystal

Nico - Blackthorn and thestral tail hair

Thalia - Pine and wolf hair

 

Everyone went to grab their wands. Leo had already torn open his and was staring at the note which had fallen out of it. “What does it mean ‘please don’t dissect your wand to discover how it works’? Why would I do that?” he asked pretending to be innocent. Everybody laughed. I walked up to the box and grabbed the package with my name on it.

Inside the packet was a beautiful wand. It seemed to be about 10 inches long and was thicker at one end. It had a pattern of flowers and musical notes swirling up the sides, compact at the bottom but more spaced out as it got to the top. I held it in my hand and gave it a slight flick. Beautiful singing immediately erupted from the end, all of the boys turned to look, seemingly enchanted by the sound. I gave it another flick and the music stopped. “Well,” I smiled, “at least we know that one of the wands works.”

By the time everyone had tried there wands, spewing fire, water, gusts of wind, flocks of owls and shadows over the whole area, the clock on the big house was just striking midday. Percy mentally called out to Blackjack to come with 3 other pegasi, while Jason and Hazel whistled for Tempest and Arion. When everyone had arrived we all got on: Percy and Annabeth on Blackjack with Leo and Calypso, Nico and Thalia taking the other 3 pegasi. Nico’s horse didn’t seem very happy about his rider but he eventually gave in after a lot of bribery from Percy. Hazel and Frank were on Arion and I was riding Tempest with Jason.

“We’ll see you in London then,” said Hazel. “Bet you can’t beat us there.” Arion whinnied in agreement and started to run as Percy shouted after them: “And tell your horse to watch his language!”

 

**Percy’s POV**

 

I loved the journey to London. Even though I was in Zeus’ territory, I felt safe on Blackjack, and just being near Annabeth, with her arms around my waist, I felt like I could do anything.

It took a long time to get to London, even at the speed we were going, but when we eventually landed, Hazel and Frank were already there. Hazel was summoning a slow stream of gold nuggets from the ground for Arion to eat while Frank turned into various animals and was trying to annoy both her and Arion. 

“So does anyone know where we are and where we’re meant to be going?” I asked, hoping that someone had done some research. Unsurprisingly, Annabeth answered.

“We’re in Diagon Alley, it’s one of the main wizarding shopping towns. All of our school supplies like books and quills have been sent to school already along with our clothes and personal belongings from camp. The only thing which we need to buy are pets, robes and, if we want one, a broomstick.”

After many questions from Jason about broomsticks and flying and a lot of other questions about pets from everyone else, we decided to go and find somewhere to buy some fury friends from. 

The pet shop was amazing. It had so many different kinds of cats, bats, rats, frogs, and birds. Luckily the owls didn’t all attack me when I went in. They did, however, all take a liking to Annabeth. 

After about half an hour of looking at pets, the ones of us who wanted an animal had finally bought one.

Annabeth and I had both chosen owls. Hers was grey like her eyes and mine was black like Blackjack. I had decided to call mine Neptune and Annabeth had called hers Perseus-Achilles (yes, a pet with a hyphenated name) just to annoy me.

Jason had an Eagle owl which he’d named Superman in honor of my amazing nickname for him and Hazel had a black cat which she’d called misty.

Leo had wanted to get a phoenix or a dragon and had been so disappointed when they didn't sell them that he refused to buy anything else. Frank, Piper, Thalia and Calypso had decided against buying pets because they didn't want one and Nico hadn’t bought one because they were all scared of his aura of death.

Annabeth payed for everything using the huge amount of money which Chiron had given to us. She also gave some to Jason so he could go and buy a broomstick and we all agreed that we would meet up in the robes shop.

 

We were in a shop called Madam Malkin’s and were all trying on robes. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would where robes, the praetor’s toga at camp Jupiter is bad enough, but robes!!!! I came out from behind the screen to show Annabeth my gorgeous new outfit. Everyone fell into fits of laughter and it was then that I noticed the four people who had just entered the shop. There were two girls, one had frizzy brown hair and the other was ginger with freckles. One of the boys looked very much like the ginger girl and the other boy strangely reminded me of myself. He was slightly shorter and less muscular, but he had the same untidy black hair. He also had green eyes, not sea green like mine but more emerald. The main difference though was the scar on his forehead, what in Hades had he done to upset Zeus. 

I walked over to the mirror by where they were standing in order to further inspect my robes and decided that I might as well introduce myself while I was over there. I held my hand out to the boy who looked like me and told them my name (Percy, not Perseus). He shook my hand but didn't introduce himself and, for some strange reason, he seemed really surprised when I asked him to tell me who he was.

 


	5. Introductions and Inns

**Ron’s POV**

 

How did this person not know who Harry was? I mean, everyone knew, some people would almost literally bow down to him (which he didn’t like) but never, since he first arrived at Hogwarts, have we met someone who hadn't at least heard of him. Harry seemed as confused as I was, his hand seems to subconsciously move to the fringe covering his scar.

“Er, I’m Harry, Harry Potter.”

Something seemed to click in Percy’s mind as if he’d just remembered who the saviour of the wizarding world was. “Oh my Gods, I’m so sorry, I didn’t notice. It’s an … honor to meet you… Will you give me a minute.” and with that, he turned and ran towards the petty blonde girl who had been laughing at him. Not the reaction I was expecting. They started talking to each other in another language, I’d never heard it before but obviously Hermione had, she nudged me and told me that it was ancient greek. Where the bloody hell had they learn fluent ancient greek?!!

“Styx Ανναμπεθ. Αυτός είναι ο Χάρι Πότερ. Εγώ δεν τον αναγνώρισε και ο ίδιος φάνηκε να εκπλήσσεται. Τι πρεπει να κανω?” (Styx Annabeth. That’s Harry Potter. I didn't recognize him and he seemed really surprised. What should I do?)

“Φυσικά αυτός είναι έκπληκτος αυτός είναι ο σωτήρας του κόσμου τους. Θα εκπλαγείτε αν κάποιος σε στρατόπεδο δεν σας αναγνωρίζουμε. Θεοί φύκια εγκεφάλου, θα έρθω και να ξεκαθαρίσουμε το θέμα.” (Of course he's surprised he's the savior of their world. You'd be surprised if someone at camp didn't recognize you. Gods seaweed brain, I'll come and sort this out.) That was the girl, I think he said her name was Annabeth. Then the two of them started walking towards us.

“Hi, I’m Annabeth,” the pretty blonde girl said sticking out her hand. Then she looked at Harry. “Oh. My. Gods. You’re Harry Potter, like the Harry Potter. You're so famous in America, there are even rumor that there going to write a book about you, well maybe a series. I mean, literally everyone knows you. Except kelp head here.” She gave Percy a smack on the back of the head which looked like it should’ve heard but he just grinned apologetically.

“Nice to meet you,” Harry looked awkward, you’d think he’d be used to girls by now but this one seemed, I don't know, different. “I guess, you’ve heard of Ron and Hermoine.” He gestured to the two of us. “And of course Ginny,” Ginny smiled and placed a slightly protective hand on Harry’s shoulder. I’m not surprised, I mean there were five seriously pretty girls in the room which she might have to compete with.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Annabeth smiled, shaking all of our hands. By this time all of her friends had come over. “Let me introduce everyone. I’m Annabeth and this is Percy, he’s my boyfriend.” Percy grinned and shook our hands. Everyone else introduced themselves and did the same.

Jason was blonde, tall and muscular, he looked like your classic superhero actually. Piper was his girlfriend. She was gorgeous, tanned skin, dark brown hair and blue eyes. Wait, no, green eyes, no, brown. God I’m confused.

Next came Hazel, once again gorgeous, were there no ugly girls in America. Hazel’s boyfriend was Frank and he was huge. Like way over six feet, looked like he could take down a grizzly bear without breaking a sweat kind of huge. I did not want to get on his bad side.

Leo, however, was smaller and Latino looking. He had George’s air of trouble about him, like everything he touched might just catch fire. Standing next to him was Calypso, she looked like a goddess or something. She had perfect caramel hair and seemed to smell of cinnamon. She seemed naturally beautiful in the sort of way that made you think that she didn’t know quite how beautiful she was.

Next came Thalia. She was pretty but slightly scary, like she could and would have you in a head lock if you said one wrong word. She seemed like a proper tom boy in scruffy jeans and a green day T-shirt but for some reason, she seemed to have a silver, was it a tiara, on her head and a silver bracelet round her wrist.

Finally there was Nico. He was just plain creepy. Creepy in the same way that thestrals and ghosts were creepy. He was smaller than the other guys: short and impossibly skinny, like he hadn’t had a full and proper meal in ages. His hair was pitch black in contrast to his incredibly pale skin. He may not have looked as strong as the others but he still radiated the same aura of power, along with something else, something un-timely. Even though it looked like all of the others could beat him up easily, including the girls, I think he was still the one that scared me most.

“So,” said Harry breaking my chain of thought. “I’m guessing your the exchange students? Where do you go to school in America”

“We go to the HBCJ school of magic in Long Island.” Annabeth said. “It’s the first exchange our school has ever done so we’re all a bit nervous,” everyone in the group nodded.

I’d never heard of an HBCJ school of magic. I didn’t even know that there was a school of magic in the states but I guess that there would have to be and I haven’t exactly researched the topic. Anyway, it will be a nice change of dynamics at Hogwarts. “What year are you coming into?” I asked.

“Annabeth, Frank and I are 18; Jason, Piper, Leo and Nico are 17; and Hazel, Thalia and Calypso are 16. But I think that we’re all coming into 8th year like you.” Percy said. That was weird, I wonder why they wouldn’t put them all in there proper year groups? I couldn’t think about it for long though, both Harry, Hermione, Ginny, the exchange students and I had come in here to buy robes so, in the end, we said our goodbyes, they went off to pay for their robes and we went off to get fitted for ours.

 

**Hazel’s POV**

 

When we’d bought our robes, we decided to go to the inn where we’d be staying the night before we went to Hogwarts tomorrow morning. By the time we reached the Leaky Cauldron it was getting late, we’d already booked rooms (well, Hectate had booked them) so we just collected the keys and went in. The first room we walked into was a dining room, it seemed deserted and the dishes were, wait, the dishes were washing themselves?!!! How does that even work, I mean, Percy can make the water wash the dishes for him because he’s a son of Poseidon. But these dishes didn’t seem to be controlled by the water, they were just washing themselves, weird. Anyway, we’d been given two big rooms upstairs, one for the boys and one for the girls. The boys kept complaining about how Leo snored and Percy drooled and Nico was impossible to wake up and Jason always lost his glasses and Frank would sometimes turn into strange animals in his sleep so we just laughed and left them to it.

When we got to our room it was actually quite nice. There were five single beds spaced around the room and a fire in one corner. There was a table in the middle of the room and food had been left out for us. We scraped some of the food into to the fire for our parents and then sat down to eat.

“What do you think school we be like then?” Piper asked

“Not sure,” I replied. “I’m looking forward to finding out how much wizards can actually do. I mean, did you see how the plates were washing themselves.”

“Yeah,” put in Annabeth, “and the chairs were stacking themselves on the tables. I can’t wait to see what the school is like, apparently it’s really old. I can’t wait to learn all of the stuff.” Honestly, daughters of Athena. But I guess I couldn't wait to start school either. The wizards that we’d met so far seemed pretty normal. They were nice and modest especially considering that they were the saviours of their world, they must have done well not to be big headed.

“I’m not sure I can cope with learning anything new,” that was Calypso. “I mean, I haven’t even got my head around the concept of cars, phones and, how do you pronounce it, Weefee?” We all laughed over her amazing new word for wifi and she soon joined in.

When we’d finished dinner we decided to go straight to bed, tomorrow would be a big day, we had to make good first impression if we were going to fit in. We all changed into the pyjamas we had in our rucksacks and within minutes had fallen into a deep sleep.

 

**Percy’s POV**

 

The girls left us and went to find there room, so we went into ours (which we standing just outside of). It was an alright room, five beds a table and a fire place. Leo lit the fire so we could burn offerings to our parents and we all sat down to eat dinner. The food was great. Not Camp Half-Blood kind of great but still pretty good. We chatted about camp, Hogwarts, our time since the war and what we’d do next. Leo explained how he’d rescued Calypso and we talked a little bit about the rather eventless two weeks which he’d missed.

After supper we all got into bed and I sent a blast of water out of the sink to douse the fire.

“What was that for?” asked Leo

“It was too hot in here”

“No it wasn’t, it was great.” He sent a blast of flames back at the wood causing it to relight.

I sent another blast of water at the fire to put it out. Leo was about to relight it when Jason flipped his coin to tails and pointed the javelin at Leo. “I agree with Percy, it’s getting stuffy in here.” Leo looked beaten but then Frank turned into a small dragon which was totally unfair and relit the fire. “Well I agree with Leo.” Jason blew out the flames with a blast of wind but the second he took his spear away, Leo relit it. I was about to put the fire out again when the shadows around the fire started growing and the temperature dropped causing the fire to go out.

“Woah, Nico.” I warned. “Time to stop now, remember what Will said, no underworld stuff, you totally drained yourself carrying the Athena Parthenos.” Nico protested slightly but he did stop which I was glad of because he seemed to have gone a shade paler than he normally was, if that was possible and, weirdest of all, almost slightly translucent around the edges

After that, we shut up, leaving the fire out for tonight. I rolled over in bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

 

When I woke up in the morning, everything that we’d complained to the girls about had come true. Leo had snored all night, Jason couldn’t remember where he’d put his glasses after he’d taken them off and when I looked over at Frank’s bed, the only thing in it was the small dragon who had relit the fire the previous night. When we were awake, the four of us went over to Nico’s bed and, of course, we couldn’t wake him up. Jason summoned a small lightning storm to zap him, I drenched him with water from the tap, Leo even offered to light him on fire. Eventually the girls came in to see what was taking us so long and to tell us to hurry up. Thalia tried slapping Nico awake but even that didn’t work.

“Wake up,” said Piper eventually, pouring so much charm speak into her words that I felt like I’d suddenly drunk ten cups of coffee. Nico shot upright and ran off to get dressed as if he’d been awake all day. “Now that’s over,” Piper said. “You’d better all get your stuff together. We’re leaving for Kings Cross in ten minutes.


	6. King's Cross and Pomegranate Jellybeans

**Thalia’s POV**

 

When Piper had finally woken up Nico, we all rushed off to King’s Cross. Annabeth took the lead, purposefully leading us through the crowded train station until we reached platform nine where she stopped, looking confused.

“What’s wrong?” Percy asked, looking at the two rails either side of us. “Which one are we taking: 9 or 10?”

“That’s just it,” Annabeth replied. “We’re taking 9 and 3/4. But there isn’t a 9 and three quarters.” We were all getting very confused and Leo even suggested that we just run at the wall between the two rails. Then a family turned up pushing trolleys with trunks and owls on them and, after looking to check if many people were watching, they actually ran right at the wall and disappeared through it.

“Ha,” shouted Leo, punching the air. “I told you so and Leo Valdez is always right, am I right Calypso or am I right.” Calypso just rolled her eyes and we all laughed. “Fine then,” said Leo. “If you still don’t believe me then I shall go first.” and with that he ran straight at the wall and disappeared. I was slightly apprehensive as to where we would all turn up on the other side but as the rest of the group slowly disappeared, I decided to take my chances. If Leo is wrong, then death by wall it shall be. And with that thought, I ran.

 

The good thing is I didn’t die (which is great because ‘here lies Thalia Grace, died running into a wall’ is not the head stone I want on my grave) the bad thing was that the train was leaving.

“RUN!!!” I shouted and we all did. It’s a good thing that we were all used to running away from monsters (or towards, depending on how we’re feeling) and we were only carrying small rucksacks, otherwise I’m not sure we would’ve made it. Calypso was last on and she grabbed Leo’s hand as she jumped on, almost pulling him off of the train. “So,” she said, “now let's find a compartment.”

All of the rooms seemed to be full. We were already at one end of the train and we had to walk all the way to the other end before we found even one that was free. Sadly, however, we couldn’t all fit in one compartment so Percy, Annabeth, Nico and I left the others there and went off to see if there was a carriage which at least had room for us to join the people in it. Coincidentally, the next compartment that we came across which was not completely full was Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny’s compartment. Great way to get stuck into our mission. “Do you mind if we join you?” I asked as I opened the compartment door. “Everywhere else is full.” They all nodded so we sat down, just managing to all squish into the compartment.

No one spoke at first and I felt really awkward. I was in a compartment full of three obvious couples: Percy was stroking Annabeth’s head which was in his lap; Ginny had her head on Harry’s shoulder and even Hermione and Ron were holding hands. Then there was Nico and me, trying not to look in any way like we were together. Sadly though, it didn’t work. “So,” said Ginny, breaking the awkward silence. “Everyone introduced themselves as girlfriends and boyfriends, I mean there were Jason and Piper and Hazel and Frank, Percy and Annabeth look like an old married couple.” Percy smiled. I didn’t. I could see where this conversation was going and there was nothing I could do to stop it. “So I guess what I’m asking,” Ginny continued, “is, are you and Nico…”

“No!!!!!!!” we both shouted at the same time, while Percy and Annabeth started laughing so hard that she fell off of his lap. Ginny looked taking aback at our reactions as if she couldn’t understand why her idea had been so ridiculous. Annabeth seemed to notice her confusion: “It’s not your fault,” she tried to say through her hysteria. “It’s just, I don’t know how to put it but… I guess, Thalia isn’t Nico’s type and anyway, he’s taken. And Thalia, well Thalia’s complicated, she’s not really into the whole dating lark.” Ginny nodded but now Percy looked confused.

“Wait, Nico’s taken?!! By who!!!!!” Annabeth shot him an ‘I’ll explain late’ look while Nico looked like wanted to use his powers and sink into the shadows “Anyway,” Annabeth continued. “Thalia and Nico are cousins”.

Percy started laughing again “είστε ο ξάδελφός μου μόλις αφαιρεθεί” (you’re my cousin once removed!!!!) he grinned and I started laughing too. Annabeth shot us both a glare “Δεν πρέπει να το γνωρίζουν αυτό. Είναι πάρα πολύ δύσκολο να το εξηγήσω ευσεβή γονίδια” (They don't have to know that. It's too hard to explain godly genes). Ron looked like he was about to explode from trying to hold in a question too long so I looked at him, signaling him to talk.

“How the bloody hell do you know ancient greek? I mean, can you all speak it and why the bloody hell do you need to know it?”

Annabeth smiled at him like she was talking to a five year old “The yearning for knowledge should be never-ending: try to know something about everything and everything about something.” Ron looked confused. “Im just saying,” Annabeth continued. “that you never know when you’ll need to know about something, even things you don’t think are real. But to answer your question, no, we don’t all speak ancient Greek.”

Ron looked slightly received but still a little nervous that anyone in the modern world would choose to learn Ancient Greek. “How many of you speak it then?” he asked.

“Well, Annabeth, Percy, Leo, Calypso, and I speak ancient Greek and Jason, Hazel and Frank speak Latin. But I think that Percy knows some Latin and Jason knows some Greek. Oh and Piper is also fluent in French.” I said

“So which one of you speaks the most languages?” that was Ginny.

I wasn’t really sure of the answer, I guess Piper cause she speaks French as well as English and her godly language, Frank knows a little Chinese and French but he isn’t fluent and Leo speaks Spanish and Morse Code (all though I’m not sure the Morse Code counts). To my surprise, however, Nico answered. “As far as I’m aware,” he said, “I do. I speak English, Latin, Ancient Greek and Italian”.

“You see, Ron,” Hermione frowned. “Boys are allowed to be clever too. Maybe I’ll dump you and pick up Nico instead.” Ron looked like he might punch Nico, Nico had changed from his usual white to pink. Hermione laughed, “Oh don’t worry Nico, I’m no threat to your girlfriend.” Now Nico was crimson, it was so hard not to laugh at his awkwardness but I eventually decided that I probably should save him from Hermione’s ignorance of the situation. “Enough about relationships,” I said as Nico gave me a grateful smile, “you guys need to tell us what Hogwarts is like.” And so they did. They told us about the kind of lessons we’d be taking and the sorting. Apparently we would get separated into four houses: Gryffindor for the brave; Ravenclaw for the clever; Hufflepuff for the loyal and kind and Slytherin for the cunning (there were other factors but those were the general basics). I hoped that we’d all be in Gryffindor together. I mean, for a start, it would make keeping an eye on Harry easier but it would also mean that we wouldn’t be separated. None of us wanted to be forced away from the others ever again.

Eventually, the sweet trolley arrived. Ron was eyeing it greedily but said he didn’t have the money. Percy, however, pulled his wallet out of his pocket and bought one of everything for each of us. There was a lot of food. All of it was weird food though, I very nearly got my bow out to shoot a chocolate frog when it started moving. And the jelly beans!… Percy got seaweed flavour which he loved, much to everyone else’s disgust. Annabeth however got a vomit one which she’d mistaken for banana. I think the one I had was chocolate, but I’m not sure. Nico spat his out as soon as he put it into his mouth.

“What’s wrong,” asked Percy. “It can’t be as bad as Annabeth’s can it?”

“Pomegranate.” Nico spat, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. “Are they taking the piss?”

“What?” Ron looked stunned. “Pomegranate is one of the good ones, what do you have against them?”

“It’s a long story,” said Nico. I wanted to tell everyone to drop the subject because having conversations about Nico’s death trance was something you just didn’t do, like no one would ever ask Percy about Tartarus. However…

“We have time,” Harry replied. Stupid mortal.

“No we don’t.” Nico looked like he was about to raise an army of skeletons. Luckily though, instead of splitting earth in two and sucking the whole train into the underworld, he just gave Harry a death stare before murmuring something about going to change into his robes in the bathroom and left.

“We should probably all get changed,” Harry said once he’d recovered from the shock of facing an angry Nico (which he did surprisingly quickly given how scary Nico can be). “We’ll be arriving at Hogwarts in about half an hour.”


	7. Boats and Sorting

**Frank’s POV**

 

Saying that Hogwarts was amazing would be the biggest understatement of the century. The castle was ancient and absolutely beautiful, It didn’t take a daughter of Athena to appreciate the architecture but I could see that a certain daughter of Athena already seemed to be working out how she could incorporate some of the designs into Olympus. There was a long line of carriages lined up to take people to the castle. The carriages were pulled by some kind of weird skeletal winged horse. The horses, of course, liked Percy whose expression seemed to signal that he was having some kind of argument with them in his head, probably to stop them from trying to crowd around him. For some strange reason though, they also seemed to like Nico who was stroking one of them which was strange because Mrs ‘O’ Leary was the only animal I ever met that didn't hate the son of Hades and she, in turn, was the only one that he liked (except, if what Annabeth had said was true about cerberus). Anyway, we were about to get onto the carriages with everyone else when Thalia froze.

“What is it?” I asked

“I think I can smell a monster, but it's weak, a bit like the way Tyson smells.” she said.

I was about to ask where the smell was coming from when I heard a voice behind me shouting “First years with me!” I turned around to see a half giant standing behind me holding a lantern. I instinctively reached for my bow (which was currently in rucksack form) but Annabeth stopped me, drawing her wand instead, I keep forgetting that we’re under cover.

“We need to check who's side he’s on,” she whispered to Percy and me. “He could be good like Tyson and we don’t want to compromise the mission and reveal ourselves over something that isn’t even a threat.”

“Ok,” said Percy. “Frank and I will see if he wants to kill us or not. If he attacks then you get him from behind, if not, then we just carry on like normal.” Annabeth nodded and put on her Yankees Cap, disappearing from view, as she started walking around to the back of the Giant.

“Hey,” Percy shouted so the giant could here. “Not meaning to be rude, but who are you?”

“Hagrid,” he replied. “Keep of games and keys and care of magical creatures teacher at Hogwarts. Is there somethin’ wrong ‘cause you look confused?”

“Umm well,” I wasn’t sure how to phrase it without offending him. “Well, you see, in America, there is a bit of negative prejudice towards giants and there kind of portrayed as a bit … well …”

Hagrid started laughing. “Oh, don’t ye’ going worryin’ about me. I’m totally safe. Jus’ ask ‘arry, Ron and ‘ermione. I’ve been ‘ere years. Anyway, my mam, the giant, left when I was a kid so I was raised by me Dad. Except for me hight, there ain’t no giant in me.”

“Double negative,” Annabeth muttered as she appeared again between Percy and me. I wan’t quite sure if Hagrid was trustworthy but I felt that he was probably safe for now.

“Anyway,” Hagrid continued. “You lot had better follow me. McGonagall says that the exchange students, which I’m assuming is you, are to be sorted with the first years so if you’d jus’ follow me to the boats.”

Hazel didn’t look happy at the prospect of getting in a boat. Thalia, Jason and Nico still weren’t totally comfortable travelling in Poseidon’s realm either. Percy, however looked ecstatic. “Great,” he grinned. “I’ll be glad to get away from those carriages, the horses won’t stop calling me ‘My Lord’”. And with that, we headed towards the boats.

Each boat seated 3 or 4 people, I was sharing a boat with Hazel, Annabeth and Percy who, thankfully for Hazel, kept our boat perfectly steady all the way across the lake. Jason, Thalia and Nico, however, were not so lucky.

 

**Nico’s POV**

 

I swear that Percy was making our boats hit rough water on purpose. Not in a mean or dangerous way, but enough to make two children of Zeus and a child of Hades feel even more insecure then they already would in Poseidon’s territory. It wasn’t really the rough water I minded though, it was that, every now and then (when there were no first years looking of cause), a watery hand would rise out of the water and hit Thalia, Jason or me in the face.

By the time we got to the shore, I was soaked and Jason looked murderous. “Jackson, you’re dead!” he shouted as he started running towards Percy. Percy was clutching his sides laughing but managed to flick his hands in our direction, immediately drying us off. “Sorry,” he said through his fits of laughter. “I was just… testing out the water… I mean, I don’t know what wizard water is like. Maybe it’s different. It turns out it’s harder to control, you see I … I just couldn’t stop it from slapping you three in the face.” And with that he lapsed back into hysteria.

I wasn’t too annoyed with Percy, even if I was, I wouldn’t have been able to do much about it. If I’d fought him without my powers I would have a sword to my throat in almost literally under a second against his skills with riptide. And even if we were using powers, I wouldn’t be able to use mine. Who was I to fight the Hero of Olympus, the greatest demigod of our time, the subject of two great prophecies. I was just Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, power over the dead, well, until he decided to shadow travel a forty foot statue over 4 and a 1/2 thousand miles from Greece to New York and nearly faded into the shadows before being saved by a goat. Yeah, great title.

Anyway. Once we were off the boats, we all followed Hagrid up towards the castle. We tried to stay behind the huge group of first years so as to remain slightly inconspicuous but it was hard to keep Annabeth from running towards the castle. She looked like she was about to explode from trying to take it all in and kept whispering to Percy about arches, spires and other stuff which made no sense to me at all.

Eventually, we reached the castle. We walked through a huge set of wooden doors and into an entrance hall where an old lady in emerald green robes was waiting outside of another set of doors

“My name is Professor McGonagall and I am the headmistress at Hogwarts. In a minute, you will enter into the great hall where you will all wait for me to call your name. When I call your name, please sit on the stool at the front and you will be sorted into your house.”

I still wasn’t sure how they would work out which house to put us in but I decided against asking. Eventually, the doors opened and we entered in to an amazing hall containing four tables, each decked with different colours: red and gold; silver and green; blue and silver and yellow and black. We all walked down through the isle in the middle of the four tables. The ten of us earned a few odd looks and whispers, they obviously hadn’t heard much about the ‘exchange students’. When we reached the front of the hall, we stopped in frontof a three-legged stool with an old wizard’s hat on top of it. I wasn’t quite sure what the hat was doing there but then suddenly, and much to my shock and amazement, a rip on the front of it opened up and it began to sing.

 

“Our founders once were given power

To do with as they wish;

And they decided to share that power

Creating there legacy, this.

The events of past may show us that

Great power can corrupt;

But standing side by side we see

The greatest power is trust.

So do not take your neighbours eye,

Just because he took mine.

If we follow this process of revenge

The whole world will go blind.

So share the powers of friendship, love,

hard work and honest toil.

For if we stand together

Greater evils we can foil

And do not be mistrustful of your

Friends with special skills:

We must all stand and combine our powers

As was our founders wills.”

 

None of the students at the tables seemed to find the singing hat weird and they just carried on like normal as McGonagall began to call out names in alphabetical order by surname. After only about 2 people she was about midway through ‘A’.

“di Angelo, Nico”

I walked up towards the stool and sat down. There were a few whispers from around the all, I guess that’s natural, I was the first ‘exchange student’ to be sorted. I sat down on the stool and, when the hat was placed onto my head, it immediately came alive.

“Interesting, where should I put you. You could fit in in Slytherin: you’re cunning and ambitious, you feel the need to prove yourself. But there is great bravery, you have faced your fears and admitted them. And oh the things you have been through. So I think… GRYFFINDOR.” The red and gold table all cheered and I walked over to sit down at the end, making sure there was space for the others. Annabeth, Jason, Thalia, Hazel and Calypso (who they had given the surname of Doren meaning free in ancient greek) were next. They were all Gryffindor but Annabeth was very nearly a Ravenclaw, I think she might have actually had to ask for Gryffindor. After a few more 1st years, it was Percy’s turn.

“Jackson, Perseus”. Annabeth smothered a laugh at Percy’s muttered retorts towards his own name as he walked up and sat down on the stool. As with all the others, the hat began to speak.

“Now you are a complicated one. So much to you, you have great ambition and cunning, the determination to fit into Slytherin but I’m not sure that that is where your destiny lies. But you have a great mind despite what others make out, very calm in difficult situations, with a great wit but not really total Ravenclaw material. But then there is Hufflepuff. The house of the loyal and kind, I sense unbreakable loyalty from you, you would do anything for your friends and loved ones but there is also so much more. You have seen terrors others can barely dream of and faced them with bravery, such great bravery. You have shown strength and chivalry and are a natural leader so I think that, like the rest of you it has to be … GRYFFINDOR.” The people around the hall clapped but it was heavily punctuated by whispered question about what things Percy had seen and how he could have fitted into all of the houses. Percy didn’t seem to notice the whispers, he just came and sat down next to Annabeth and turned to watch the rest of the sorting.

The rest of us: Piper, Leo and Frank, were also all in Gryffindor. Frank was the last to be sorted and when he had sat down, McGonagall stood up at the front of the hall.

“It is with great pleasure that I greet our new students and welcome back our old ones for a new school year. Before we eat, there will be a few notices. I would like to remind you all that the forbidden forest is, as the name suggest, out of bounds. You have also probably all noticed our 10 exchange students who are joining us this year at Hogwarts. I ask you to be kind and courteous towards them as you would be to any other students and make sure that they know what’s going on and how things work. So now, without further ado, let the feast begin!!!”


	8. Dinner and Ghosts

**Percy’s POV**

 

Suddenly, the tables were filled with food, it just came out of nowhere. I wasn’t that shocked, I mean, it’s no weirder then the way we got food at camp Jupiter or Camp Half-Blood, but it was still cool. Anyway, I piled food onto my plate and was about to go up to the fire and make an offering to the Gods when I remembered we weren’t in Camp Half-Blood so didn’t have a fire.

“ _Annabeth!!!”_ I whisper shouted. “ _How are we meant to make our offerings?!!! We can’t just not do them, it would be really bad.”_

 _“Dam.”_ I nearly burst out laughing at the particular choice of word but decided not to and let her continue. _“I didn’t think of that. Maybe Leo could create a subtle fire under the table or something?”_

 _“Did someone mention fire?”_ guess who that was. “ _cause I love fire. I’m guessing your talking about offerings. I could do a fire under the table but I think that people would still notice. Why don’t you just ask McGonagall, say it’s our religion or something, it is the truth … kind of.”_

 _“I guess,”_ Annabeth said. “ _But she probably wouldn’t buy it, I mean, it’s hardly a water tight story.”_

_“I could try and charm-speak her into believing it.”_

_“No,” I replied. “Remember what Hecate said, you can’t charm-speak all of them. If it didn't work then she might get suspicious and think that you were trying to use magic on her or something.”_

_“Maybe we should just pray to the Gods silently and ask them to forgive us for now and just eat. Then when we get to the common room later, we can burn them some sweets or something. I’m sure they’d love some of those every flavour jelly beans.”_

_“Leo Valdez,”_ Annabeth looked shocked. “ _That might be the cleverest thing that I’ve ever heard you say. It’s worth a try, just remember to pray before-hand in case they think we’ve forgotten them, get angry and come and smite down the whole school.”_

So we went with Leo’s plan. I sent a quick prayer to my dad asking him to let me eat and telling him that I’d repay him later and then, very nervously, I took a bite of food. It was fine, I didn’t get struck by lightning AND the food was delicious. Everything was great until Nico suddenly tensed beside me. I was about to ask what it was when silvery figures began to float through the walls. Ghosts.

 

**Harry’s POV**

 

The food was amazing. As always. Ron and I loaded up our plates and started eating straight away. I looked over at the exchange students to see how they were doing but, for some weird reason, they weren't eating. They had food on their plates but, instead of eating it, they were having a whispered conversation in ancient greek. I had no clue what they were saying, but it sounded important. Eventually though, they started eating. Some of them looked a bit nervous about the food, as if it might be poisoned, but after the first bite, they seemed to calm down.

I’d forgotten how much I’d missed Hogwarts, everything about it, the food, the people, the building itself and, as creepy as they were, the ghosts.

The ghosts arrived like they always did to greet the new students. Nick was drifting down the Gryffindor table talking to and scaring the first years. I looked over to see how the exchange students would react to idea of ghosts. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting them to say but I was surprised to see Nico looking really agitated, not like he was scared but more like he was trying to holding anger. Eventually, the Gryffindor ghost reached our end of the table.

“Hey Nick,” said Ron. “You need to met our new exchange students, all ten of them got put in Gryffindor.”

“Sir Nicholas, if you please,” frowned Nick, “Especially in front of guests, so what are you na…” Nick froze the second he laid eyes on Nico. “M-my Lord!” He stammered, sweeping into a bow. “I did not know you were coming. I-i … is your father well?”

“As far as I’m aware. You know as well as anyone that I don’t see him much, he’s always busy with Thanatos dealing with cowards like you who just can’t face them.” Nico’s voice strangely reminded me of Malfoy, and who the hell was his Dad?

“I apologize deeply. B-but do send him my best wishes a-and…” he looked over at Nico who was angrily twisting a ring on his finger. “M-m-my Lord, could you maybe, if it’s not to much to ask, but could you possibly leave your ring alone, I mean, if you wouldn’t mind, it’s just that it, well, it affects us and…”

“Oh, so you’re telling me what to do now are you? Is that how it goes? Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, controller of Nico di Angelo, son of…” Percy gave Nico a nudge and he stopped talking. Seriously, who was his father!!! Nick started backing away and Nico reached out a hand to grab him, I was about to point out that you can’t touch ghosts but Nico somehow managed to grab Nick’s wrist like he was a solid normal human. “Now you listen to me, you can go tell all of your ghostly friends to keep away from me or I might just tell my dad that you’ve been annoying me.” Nick looked like he was about to faint and I don’t blame him. One of the pair was actually radiating cold, and I don’t think it was Nick.

“Y-y-yes, m-m-my lord.” Nick looked absolutely terrified as Nico released his wrist. “Good,” Nico spat as Nick began to float away. “And stop calling me my lord.” And with that, Nick disappeared.

I did not know what to say. I mean what do you say to someone who has just gone psychopathic and managed to scare something which can’t be harmed and is already dead. Of course Ron knew what to say however, being his usual articulate self, he didn’t even give Nico a minute to cool off (or warm back up as it was in his case). “Bloody Hell, mate. You just threatened a ghost with the ‘I’ll tell my Dad’ line. I mean, who the hell is your dad cause he must be pretty damn scary.”

Nico was silent and, for a minute, I thought he might explode again, but Percy saved the day. “Nico’s dad is high up in the ghost registry office. He’s busy all the time so Nico never sees him and it makes him a bit, well, resentful.” Nico still didn’t say anything, just fiddled with that weird skull ring which he was wearing, so Percy carried on talking, sadly however, this time it was in Ancient Greek. “ _Oh come on Nico, don’t go all dark, lone-ranger on me, lighten up. Remember what Will said, no more creepy underworld stuff, engage with he living and make new friends.”_ Still silence. _“Oh come on Nico, stop being all depressed, you’ve been like this since we left camp. If you’re not careful then I’ll go fetch Solace and if he finds out that you’ve been talking to ghosts and lowering the temperature then he might take you back for another couple of weeks in the infirmary. Come on, Nico, we need to fit in, so lets be sociable and eat.”_

Percy was amazing, whatever he said had obviously worked because Nico seemed to almost laugh at parts of it and when Percy’s lecture was over, Nico actually picked up his fork and ate some food, not much, but some. So that was that and we all kind of continued eating like nothing had happened. I guess the thing about Hogwarts is that, it takes a lot of weirdness to actually be weird enough to disrupt normal routine, especially dinner.

 

 

 

**Annabeth’s POV**

 

When we’d all finished dinner after Nico’s little ‘incident’, Harry, Ron and Hermione showed us upstairs to Gryffindor common room. We were lead along loads of corridors and passages and up staircases which were moving, yes, moving!!! I don’t know if even I will remember the way down to breakfast in the morning. Eventually we reached a portrait of a fat lady in a white dress. I wasn’t quite sure what we were doing there but then, much to my surprise, the picture spoke!

“Password?”

“Amici Novi,” Ron replied.

Jason laughed slightly, “It’s pronounced aim-chi no-wee with a ch and a w. Not ami-k-i No-v-i”

Ron looked annoyed at being stood up by the new kid “Oh, and I suppose your fluent in Italian like ghost boy there.” he gestured over and Nico who didn't react. “Actually,” Jason replied calmly. “It’s Latin, which I am fluent in. It means new friends. Amici Novi.” he said to the fat lady (correctly pronounced)

“Correct,” she said and with that she swung open to reveal a beautiful common room. Gryffindor common room was lovely, not in an organized and structured way, but more of a homely and comfortable way which made you feel safe. There was a huge fire place in one wall and lots of red sofas and armchairs dotted around the room. We all walked up to the armchairs around the fire and collapsed down into them. There wasn’t really enough room for all of us, but Hazel sat on Frank’s lap and Calpso and Leo squished onto one bean bag. I took the arm of Percy’s chair and leaned into him, Piper did the same with Jason. Hermione was almost sitting on Ron but not quite and, eventually, Ginny came and sat down by Harry’s feet.

Nobody said anything. It wasn’t really a comfortable silence, in truth it was really quite awkward. After a few minutes, Ron got out his wand and waved it saying “accio sweets”, I wasn’t quite sure what it was supposed to do, but suddenly a bag of sweets from the train came whizzing down the stair case into Ron’s hand. He opened the bag and started eating

Being the stupid seaweed-brain he is, Percy then got out his wand. “Seriously?” I raised and eye-brow. “I’m hungry.” Percy moaned then added in Ancient Greek “ _how hard can it be?”_ and with that he shouted the same spell Ron had. At first, nothing happened and I thought we were going to have to explain why he couldn’t do a simple summoning spell, but then, another bag of sweets came whizzing towards us. “See.” Percy said triumphant as he grabbed the bag.

Suddenly, all the others started doing the same. In the commotion of flying sweets, Percy subtly chucked a hand full of sweets into the fire while the wizards weren’t looking and whispered a prayer to his father, he then handed me the sweets so I could do the same. Eventually, all of us had made our offerings into the fire, except for Leo who I think had just held his sweets in his hand and set them on fire behind his back. I looked around the room, expecting someone to start a conversation but it had lapsed back into silence.

I was just about to give up on the whole groups conversational skills and go to bed when Leo looked up from his bag of sweets and grinned mischievously at the wizards. “So, do you have truth or dare in England.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, “Why?”

“Because we’re meant to be getting to know our amee-ch-ee no-w-ee” Leo continued, in a totally fake and over the top Italian accent, strongly emphasising the ch and the w. “And, as much fun as it is, just sitting here isn’t working soooooooo, let’s play truth or dare.”

Harry and Ron broke out into grins suddenly while Hermione let out an exasperated sigh. “Ok, you’re on.” And so it began.


	9. Truth or Dare and Nightmares

**Hermione’s POV**

 

I wasn’t sure what to make of the exchange students. They seemed nice enough but there was something … different, about them. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, they all radiated power, yet Percy had seemed hesitant about doing a simple summoning charm. They’d also seemed nervous about eating dinner at first and had had what sounded like an argument before starting their meals. But strangest of all was how Nico had scared the ghosts. Nick had called him ‘My Lord’ and Nico had been able to grab hold of Nick like he was a solid being, which he wasn’t. Normally I would’ve investigated further, but I didn’t want to seem like I was jumping to conclusions about people I had just met and anyway, what could I find out about them during a game of truth and dare?

“Okay,” Leo spoke up. “Harry, you can go first and then whoever you ask can go next and so on. Got it”

Harry nodded and looked thoughtful. “Percy, truth or dare?” Percy looked up. “Ummm… Dare.” he said. Harry grinned “I dare you to go swimming in the lake tomorrow evening.” Ron laughed and I wanted to too but it was a pretty harsh dare. Percy however seemed delighted.

“Gods,” Annabeth moaned. “Did you just dare Percy to go swimming? He loves water.”

“Yeah but the lake is freezing and there are evil mer-people and the giant squid.”

“You’re just exciting him more.” Annabeth said, and she was right, Percy looked like a two year old who’d just been giving a chocolate bar. I wasn’t quite sure why he wasn’t scared about the mermaids or the cold water but each for his own.

“Anyway,” Percy said once he’d got over his dare. “So I’ll go swimming tomorrow evening but first, Ginny, truth or dare?” Ginny went for truth. “Ok, When did you first fall for Harry? And you can’t just give a date, we need a feature length romance film kind of story.”

“Awww, like you had with Annabeth?” Jason teased.

“Shut up superman, our relationship would take up at least ten books if you were going to write it down, not just one film.” We all laughed and then turned expectantly to Ginny who looked a bit embarrassed but not awfully so, she noticed we were watching and began talking:

“I liked Harry from when I met him before I came to Hogwarts but that was more like a crush than actual love. Anyway, I came to Hogwarts in second year I started telling my feelings to that stupid diary and, well, that didn’t end well. Anyway, I ended up possessed in the chamber of secrets and Harry came and saved me. But after that, I felt really awkward around him and I became really shy until Hermione here told me to be more myself and maybe try dating some other guys.” I grinned and Percy motioned for Ginny to continue. “Anyway, I took Hermione’s advice, I dated Michael Corner and Dean Thomas in 4th and 5th year.” Ron made a gagging noise and Harry put a slightly protective arm round his girlfriend but Ginny ignored them. “Anyway, when Harry got kicked off of the quiditch team in fifth year, I took his place. We won the match and then at the party I saw Harry and we … well we kissed. Then we started going out but it was a bit up and down because SOMEONE decided to go all heroic and break up because he thought that you-know-who would try and use me to get to him. Anyway, then there was the battle and Harry killed you-know-who so we got back together and then… well that’s kind of it.” Leo, Jason and Percy clapped theatrically and Ginny gave a slight, sarcastic bow before turning to Ron and offering him the usual choice, Ron went for Dare. “Ok, well I’ve gone on an emotional journey so I dare you to kiss the prettiest girl in the room. And you can’t just go for Hermione cause you’re going out with her so it doesn’t count. Oh and it has to be on the lips.”

Ron got up awkwardly and looked around at the many beautiful girls in the circle before walking towards Annabeth. He was almost there when Percy realised what he was doing, reached into his pocket and pulled out… wait, a pen? Jason coughed something that sounded like tiptide or ritppide or something like that. Percy looked down at the pen and laughed, switching it for his wand but Ron seemed to get the idea ‘move along’. Annabeth rolled her eyes and Ron backed off from the pair.

Piper was the next attempt much to the same story, except this time Jason pulled his wand out first time. In perfect dramatic timing, though, thunder started to rumble outside at the same time as Jason gave Ron the back off symbol.

After trying and failing to kiss both Hazel and Calypso, Ron turned to Thalia. I couldn’t hold in my laughter as Thalia pulled out her own wand and pointed it at Ron’s throat. It looked like Ron wasn’t going to be able to complete his dare after all but instead, Annabeth stood up, walked up to Ron and gave him a quick kiss on the lips

“There you go, there was no way you were going to manage to complete that dare with us. Too many overly protective boyfriends.” She grinned at Percy who pouted back. “Oh, don’t worry kelp-head, I’m not about to leave you… yet.” She laughed and sat back down on the arm of the sofa. Percy pulled her off of it so that she fell with her head in his lap so he could lean down and give her a quick kiss. “Never do that again.” he laughed. “Understand”. We all laughed even Ron who looked a bit awkward still.

And so the night continued. Ron dared Nico to scare peeves which he eventually agreed to, Nico dared Piper to fangirl over Percy which they all found hilarious except for Piper who kept muttering about some kind of Appetite stereotype or something weird like that. Anyway, the night continued and soon, it was late and we all decided to go up to our rooms.

 

**Annabeth’s POV**

 

Ok, so I have to admit that truth or dare was funny. At first, I’d thought it was a dreadful idea because:

  1. They could have ended up asking some awkward questions
  2. One of us could have forgotten we were undercover and ended up revealing ourselves by daring Leo to light himself on fire or Frank to turn into a guinea pig (which always terrified Percy)
  3. It was Leo who had come up with the idea



But it turns out that I was wrong. Frank didn’t turn into any strange creatures, Leo didn’t light anyone on fire (which was as much of a surprise as it was a relief) and Nico didn’t rip a whole in the Earth when asked to scare another ghost.

I went up the stairs to my bedroom. The girls and boys sections were in different sides of the common room and the rooms were separated by year group, so I was with Thalia, Hazel, Piper, Hermione and about four other girls called Lavender, Parvati, Eloise and Fay Dunbar. There were a lot of people but it wasn't any more than I was used to sharing with at camp. The dorm was huge. We each had a four poster bed with red curtains. Our trunks were at the bottom of our beds, I had a quick look through mine just to check that everything had arrived from camp safely. I didn’t have much at camp to bring, I’d taken my Yankee’s cap with me in my rucksack along with my Drakon Bone dagger. All that was left to be put in the trunk were my school books and few pairs of clothes.

I grabbed a pair of Pjs out of my trunk and quickly changed into them before climbing into bed. I was rather tired and knew that tomorrow would be busy so I curled up and went to sleep. I hadn’t had any dreams at all since the Giant War so I guess I was probably due a good nightmare wasn’t I…

_Percy and I were back to back, being pushed slowly towards the chasm of chaos by the Arai. Every time we slashed through them they just reappeared and with every kill it got harder to keep going. One came up on my right and I stabbed it through the heart causing it to burst into gold dust. Suddenly, Percy disappeared. How could he just leave me like that, in the time I needed him most._

_“Percy!!!!” I shouted into the darkness. “You promised, you said you’d never leave me, not down here.” I spun around through the darkness but I was completely alone, even the Arai had gone, it was just me and the looming fall. “Where are you lying, little beast. If I ever find you I’ll… I’ll” I felt like I was about to break down. I couldn’t see anything anymore, just darkness. I didn’t know how close to the edge I was, if only Percy was here, how could he just leave me like that…_

_Suddenly everything began to spin as the scene changed. Akhlys was hovering above the ground as black liquid swirled around her. Her skin was blistering and she was writhing and screaming in pain, I almost felt sorry for her. I looked around trying to find the source of her misery, I followed the trail of poison to its source. Percy. His arms were raised towards the screaming primordial and the poison was obeying his every move. He looked so different, so terrifying I almost couldn’t look at him. He was translucent from the death mist but that wasn’t what really hit me, it was his eyes. They weren’t there usual green like the sea on a calm day, they were like an ocean storm, so dark they were almost black, they looked like they could suck you in and drown you in a single blink.I had looked into the green eyes of Gaia and the gold of Kronos but they were nothing compared to how Percy stared at his prey._

_“Percy,” I shouted. “Percy, this isn’t you. Don’t do this.” I kept shouting until I was hoarse but he didn’t stop, he just ignored me._

_“I wouldn’t bother. He’ll never change!” A voice laughed out of the darkness. I didn’t know the voice but I felt like I should recognise it, like I’d heard it somewhere in a dream, or a dream of a dream. “See what he has done to you. The great daughter of Athena, Architect of Olympus, forced to wander the depths of Tartarus, abandoned. He won’t listen to you, he doesn’t care. Yet you still choose to love him, how cruel life is, death is much kinder, is it not.”_

_Laughter rung through every corner of the darkness and then a pair of blood red eyes shone out of the void before I felt myself falling over the edge, off the edge of existence into the chasm of chaos. I screamed._


	10. Dreams and Kidnapping

**Percy’s POV**

 

The dorms were really cool. I was sharing with Harry, Ron, Jason, Nico, Frank, Leo and three other boys called Neville, Dean and Seamus who seemed nice enough. We had a four-poster bed each with red hangings (they would’ve been cooler blue but red was alright). It was nice to share with people for a change after having been on my own at camp since Tyson went off the the cyclops forges. Anyway, we each had a trunk at the bottom of the bed with all of our school stuff and our clothes from camp. I couldn’t be bothered to sort through it tonight so I just grabbed some pyjamas, checked riptide was still in my pocket (which of course it was), got changed and got into bed. I fell asleep almost immediately and, courtesy of the giant war being over, had a good dream instead of a nightmare.

 

_I was sitting on the beach just outside camp half blood with my head on Annabeth’s shoulder and my hand in hers. My feet were in the sea and I could feel the water refreshing me and giving me power, but I knew I didn’t need any power at that moment, I just needed her._

_We sat in silence for a while before I heard voices to my right. I turned to see Mum and Paul walking down the beach towards us. They were holding hands and laughing. My mum looked happy. They came over to us and hugged us both, they sat down beside and just talked. We’d been chatting for about five minutes when something in the water changed. I thought the moment was about to be ruined, that we were about to be attacked by monsters. But it wasn’t monsters, it was Tyson and our dad. Tyson ran up to me and gave me a bone-crushing hug. Poseidon smiled at me and greeted Sally and Paul. No one else arrived, nothing big happened, we just sat and talked and it was lovely. I looked over at Annabeth to ask her something but when she started speaking it wasn’t her voice._

_“Wake up, Percy!!!!!!” I wanted to complain but something in the voice was so inviting, I felt like I’d do anything it said. “Wake uuuuuuuuup!!!!!!” I was about to wake up anyway when a small bolt of lightning shot out of the sky hitting me right on the head…_

 

My eyes flew open, the beach and everyone on it were gone. Piper and Thalia were standing over my bed trying to shake me awake

“There’s no way that it’s morning already,” I moaned

“No, Kelp-head, that’s why there’s no sun.” That was Thalia

“Then why are you trying to wake me up?” I rolled back over and tried to pull the duvet over my head.

“It’s Annabeth.” I sat bolt upright and started climbing out of bed as Piper continued to explain about how Annabeth was having a nightmare. Apparently she was screaming and kicking but none of them had been able to wake her up. In no time at all, I was at the bottom of the stairs leading to the girls dormitories. I started to run up the stairs but when I got a few stairs up they turned into a slide and I slid all the way back down.

“Styx,” I moaned.

“You're lucky it’s night time, otherwise you’d have set off an alarm apparently. If you still want to get up though then I could shock you up there.” Thalia grinned evilly and her fingers flickered with electricity. I smiled sarcastically and turned down her offer but it did give me an idea. After checking the common room was empty, I summoned all of the water in the common room and formed into a moving barrier which successfully managed to push me up the stairs. I was about to send it back down so Thalia and Piper could get up, but the second they put a foot on the stairs they returned to normal. I sighed and began running towards the dorm where I could now hear the screaming coming from.

Hazel and Calypso were standing over a four-poster bed which held a writhing Annabeth, she’d managed to clear the room of all the other girls in it so it was only demigods in there. I ran over to my girlfriend and sat down on the side of her bed.

“Annabeth,” I shouted, giving her a shake. “Wake up, Annabeth.” I tried again louder to no avail. “Come on wise-girl, it’s me, it’s Percy”

“Percy!!!” Annabeth suddenly shouted as she twisted in bed. “You promised, you said you’d never leave me!!!!!!!”

“I’m here, I’m right next to you. I haven’t left you, I never will, just wake up.” I was getting desperate now, what ever her nightmare was, it was bad and I was pretty sure I could make a good guess as to roughly what it was about. “Come on Annabeth, I’m here, it’s me.”

“This isn’t you!!!!’ Annabeth started shouting and kicking again. “Don’t do this!!!!”

“It is me.” I didn’t know what to do now, she was too deeply in the dream. “Come on Wise-girl, you’re stronger than this you, the daughter of Athena, Architect of Olympus. Don’t be beaten by a stupid nightmare!” I was just reaching over to shake her again when she let out another ear-piercing scream and sat bolt upright.

“Thank Gods, Annabeth!” I leaned over to hug her but she flinched away from me. That one movement was enough to almost break me. Annabeth, my wise-girl, was scared of me. “What is it? It’s me, it really is just me.” I looked her in the eye and she stared back at me. In the semi-darkness, I could almost see the sea-green of my own eyes reflected in the grey of hers. She stared at me for a moment and then something in her brain seemed to click and she threw herself at me, sobbing into my shoulder

“It’s alright,” I whispered into her hair. “Your safe, I’ve got you, it wasn’t real, just a nightmare, that’s all.”

“It just…” she chocked back a sob. “It just seemed so real. It was like we were back there again and I was terrified and… I stabbed the arai and then you vanished and I was alone and it was just…” she sniffed loudly andI stroked her head. I still felt awful, I knew that Calypso’s curse to Annabeth hadn’t really been my fault but I still felt so sorry for the sobbing girl in my arms. I saw Calypso step away from the two of us awkwardly as Annabeth continued to explain the nightmare “And then Akhlys arrived and your eyes… and there was a voice,” she broke down again in my arms and I suddenly realised why she’d flinched from me. I never thought much about the incident with the poison but even I had felt different. Somehow darker and more powerful, it was almost an addictive feeling but… something about that kind of power was wrong. Annabeth had known that and it terrified her and, to be honest, it terrified me too.

 

**Calypso’s POV**

 

If I hadn’t already felt guilty about cursing Annabeth then I did now. I hadn’t been thinking at the time, I’d just been angry and I hadn’t fully believed that the curse would actually reach her from Ogygia. What I certainly hadn’t thought was that, out of all of the horrors of Tartarus, the one which would scare Annabeth enough to give her nightmares would be the one which I had bestowed upon her.

I would of apologised right then and there, but I didn’t want to make things worse by talking about it so I slipped away from the group around Annabeth’s bed and got back into mine. It was a long time before I actually fell asleep, all I knew was that Annabeth had stopped crying but I hadn’t heard Percy leave, so I assumed he was staying with her. Piper slipped out about 10 minutes after I went to bed to invite the other girls back in and apologise for the disturbance, telling them to forget about all of it. I’m not sure, but I could’ve sworn that she put some charm-speak into her apology, It didn’t really matter whether she did or didn’t though because they didn’t seem to mind anyway. I lay on my side and stared into the darkness until sleep eventually came.

 

I was woken by a loud alarm sound coming from the stairs. A few seconds later, a draught of wind came through the door followed by Jason, Leo and Frank. One of the Hogwarts girls in the dorm screamed and the others all started asking questions about how the boys had got in here. Jason just ignored them and stared quickly around the room: “We’ve lost Percy!!! He wasn’t in his bed this morning, what if he’s been kidnapped or something?”

Piper was trying to stifle a laugh, “What if he just went for a walk or even ran away of his own accord though?”

“He wouldn’t do that, and anyway, he left riptide behind which he’d never do, he never leaves that thing anywhere.”

Jason looked like he was about to run outside and go and search the whole country for his friend when suddenly, the curtains on Annabeth’s bed moved as Percy stuck his head out: “Morning superman. Miss me?” 


	11. Breakfast and Timetables

**Jason’s POV**

 

“I am going to kill you Jackson!” A draught started flowing from the door to Percy’s bed, slowly getting stronger as it reached towards him.

“Jason!” Piper shouted. “Other people!!!”

“Fine!” I moaned. The wind died down and Percy climbed out of bed and walked over to me.

“Awwww, good to know you care about me Jasey wasey. Did you think I’d been taken away? Ohh you must of been worried, how would you’ve coped without me!” Everyone laughed at my scowling but eventually I couldn’t help but crack a smile as Percy did a one man show of someone trying to take him away like he was a damsel in distress. “Help me, help me, I’m being kidnapped!” He did an over dramatic faint before crawling to my feet. “Jason, all powerful son of… your father! You saved me, how will I ever repay you.” He fainted again and Leo looked like he was about to start crying he was laughing so much.

“Oh come on, Sea-weed brain!!! Sorry about him.” Annabeth apologised to the other girls in the room before pulling Percy up off the floor.

“Why were you in here anyway?” I asked once Percy was upright again.

“Well, Annabeth had a nightmare so Thalia and your girlfriend came and woke me up. Which I’m surprised didn’t wake you up as well but I guess we’re all used to sleeping through noise. Anyway, Annabeth was still really scared so I slept with her.”

I choked on my laugh, Leo lapsed back into hysterics and Annabeth gave an exasperated sigh. “Oh Gods, that came out so wrong. You know what I mean!”

“Yeah, sure!” Leo laughed. “Anyway, now that we’ve found you we have to move onto the more important matter which is … FOOD! I mean I burn up a lot of energy if you know what I mean so I really need my fuel and…”

“Enough of the fire puns Leo, we all get it, your hungry. So if you boys all leave to get Ron and Harry and try to wake up Nico then we’ll get changed and meet you in the common room” Annabeth gave Percy a peck on the cheek and the three of us left to go back to our dorm.

 

“So did Annabeth have a vision or a flashback?” I asked as we walked back through the common room.

“Flashback. Of… well you know where. I know which bit she was talking about but… she said there was a voice and I don’t remember there being a voice which is weird.” Percy was right, that was weird and I must of shown my concern. “There’s nothing to be worried about though, seriously. She would’ve told me if it said anything important and she didn’t. It was just that place messing with her mind.” I wasn’t convinced but I could tell Leo was getting impatient:

“Come on, it could take a good half hour to wake up Nico and I think that I will implode if I don’t get some food soon so let’s go.” And with that we climbed the stairs, shook Nico awake (surprisingly easily I might add), got dressed and met the girls down in the common room.

 

We managed to wake Nico up surprisingly quickly. I think that Leo’s threat of goats carrying Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans kind of helped.

We met the girls in the common room and together, the 14 of us headed down to breakfast. Leo immediately piled his plate with basically all the food on the table. I mean he literally cleared three whole platters (which luckily automatically refilled the moment they became empty). Anyway, we were midway through breakfast when Professor McGonagall started walking up and down the table handing out time tables.

“What in Hades are all these subjects?” I heard Leo shout when he got handed his timetable.

Annabeth shot him a look: “They’re exactly the same as the ones we have in America, I think they just use slightly different names here, don’t they Percy?”

Percy quickly swallowed his orange juice: “Yeah, I mean some of them are the same like… um… I mean we call it potions as well and transfiguration is what we call… um object transformation, I think.” Leo seemed to catch on and nodded.

I looked down at my timetable which seemed to be written in Goboldigook. At first I thought it was just Dyslexia, and spent ages trying to work out what my brain had turned into Herbology before realising that maybe that was the actually name for it. What the Hades is Herbology? And what do you do in Defence Against the Dark Arts, I mean that sounds dangerous, I don’t mind a bit of danger but seriously, this is a school, it’s meant to be safe.

I looked over at the others timetables and all of us, including Harry, Ron and Ginny, seemed to have the same lessons. The only one with a different timetable was Hermione, she wasn’t doing Divination and seemed to be doing about 50000 other subjects instead.

Some of the lessons seemed self explanatory but a lot of them were strange and new to me:

Charms

Care of Magical Creatures

Break

Transfiguration

Divination

Lunch

Potions

DADA

“Bloody Hell,” Ron said from my right, “We’ve got no frees all day. No frees! I mean, when we first got invited back, I thought it would be cool to take back some of the subjects I dropped for NEWT’s but now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure I can survive 6 hours of lessons. I mean seriously. I’ll be dead by the end of the day!”

“Well you can’t afford to be dead.” Harry laughed. “I’m going to go and practise quidditch afterwards ‘cause it would be awkward if the Gryffindor captain was out of practise at try outs and I can’t have a dead goalie, there’s no way we’ll beat Slytherin like that.”

Quidditch sounded like a cool game, and since I’d bought a broomstick I might as well use it: “Can I join you? I’ve never actually played but I love the idea of flying. It must be so much fun just floating through the air, you don’t get a chance to do it outside Quidditch do you.” Leo choked into his bacon and I couldn’t help but smile. But Harry, who didn’t get the joke, just nodded and said I could come along with him and Ron this evening to practise before actual trials happened.

“And after that,” Ron grinned. “ **Someone** has to go and swim in the freezing cold lake”

Percy grinned mischievously and waved. “We should probably be heading to lessons now, shouldn’t we?” he turned to Annabeth and added in Greek “ _What is charms anyway? I had a flick through some basic spells before we came here as a bit of preparation but nothing too advanced, I hope it’s enough”_

_“Wow, you actually did some work! Voluntarily! Charms are spells which change an objects properties where as transfiguration which we have later, changes what an object is. I haven’t looked into many spells either I guess we’ll just have…”_

“Can you guys stop jabbering away in Greek.” Ron butted in, “I mean it’s great and all, but I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Bit annoying.”

“συγνώμη!” Percy laughed. Ron scowled.

“He said sorry.” Annabeth glared at Percy. “And yes, we probably should get going to lessons. I don’t want to be late on my first day. And with that, we left the great hall and started making our way to charms."


	12. Cheats and Creatures

**Piper’s POV**

 

We walked into a large classroom with desks on either side and a tall desk at the front. At first I thought that there was no teacher here yet but, as I sat down in my seat between Jason and Leo, a very short man with brown hair, a moustache and glasses appeared at the top of the desk ad started sifting through piles of paper.

“Hey, Leo!” Jason whispered as he leaned over me. “You’re not the shortest guy in the room any more.”

I laughed and Leo pretended to scowl: “I’m not short!” He quietly stamped his foot like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

“Shorter than average I’m afraid.” Jason grinned.

“Am not!”

“Mate, you’re shorter than my girlfriend!” Percy laughed as he leaned in from Leo’s other side.

“Yeah, but she’s weirdly tall. And I may be short, but can Annabeth do this?”

“Leo! No!” I shouted, but it was too late. He had already raised his hand and set it alight.

“Oh my God!” I heard someone shout. “Quick, Professor Flitwick, the new students on fire!!!!” Leo seemed to suddenly realise where he was about to extinguish himself when he was hit by a blast of wind and water, one from either side of him.

“Oh goodness! Are you alright young man?” The teacher, Professor Flitwick asked in a squeaky voice. Leo smiled sheepishly and nodded. “Oh, I see,” the Professor continued. “Now students, what I think we have just witnessed is a brilliant example of the flame-freezing charm. Is that right young man?” Leo just nodded again. “Now then, would you like to come up to the front and demonstrate so we can all see properly?”

Styx, we’re so screwed. Leo won’t know the proper incantation or wand movement or whatever you’re meant to do. But he could hardly say he didn’t know, he’d just proved that he could happily set his arm alight. I racked my brains to see if I could think of a spell that might help. I’d flicked through a few spell books but I didn’t see anything about a flame-freezing charm. Leo seemed to be having the same thoughts, he looked down our row, for help. Annabeth role her eyes and leaned over Percy toward Leo.

“Wave your wand in an arc above your head and say _Ignis Tueri_. Then point your wand at yourself and say _incendio_ to create fire”

“No need to be shy.” Professor Flitwick’s voice came from the front of the class. Leo grinned at al of us and then slipped out of the row and headed towards the front. “In your own time then Mr…?”

“Valdez” Leo grinned. “Leo Valdez. Ok then, here goes. Igneous Tueri.” He made an arc with his wand, then he turned his wand on himself and went up in flames as he shouted Incendio. From years of watching Leo set fire to himself, I could tell that the fire hadn’t actually come from his wand but no one else seemed to notice. Of course, Leo being Leo, had to show off even further and add in some backflips and juggling fireballs (which I hope no one noticed because I’m not sure if the spell allows you to do it). Eventually, Leo let the flames die down, gave a theatrical bow and sat back down in his seat.

“Brilliant!” Flitwick clapped from the front. “Absolutely fabulous. Now, I wonder if any of the other exchange students can show us a spell or two?” None of us spoke. “Don’t be shy, now. Mr Valdez has shown us fire so one of you could try…”

“Aguamenti!” Percy shouted, waving his wand in an S shape. A small trickle of water came out of his wand but before it could be classed as pathetic, he flicked his free hand under the desk, staring at the water and it grew into an enormous ball of spinning water. Moving his hands around dramatically, Percy quickly transformed the ball into a water horse and sent it galloping around the classroom before exploding it over our desk, soaking all of us (except of course himself and Annabeth).

Everyone laughed. Some people clapped.

“ _You know that we’re meant to be learning real magic, not just cheating by using our powers, don’t you?”_ Annabeth whispered to Percy.

“ _I guess, but I couldn’t let them think Leo was cooler than me.”_ Percy laughed back. “ _Anyway, I tried to start it off properly. Surely even you haven’t had enough time to perfect any spells… Have you?”_

Annabeth grinned. “Avis!” She said making two arches in the air with her wand. There was a bang like a gunshot and a flock of owls flew out of her wand and started circling round her head.

“Fabulous, once again!” Flitwick clapped from the front of the room. He took a pocket watch out of his waist coat, looked at it and gasped.“My goodness, the lesson’s almost over. We might have time to see one more spell. Any recommendations?” He looked around at the rest of the class.

“Can you levitate a person?” A guy with brown hair and an Irish accent asked. I think I’d seen the spell for levitation somewhere but I’d never tried it, especially not on a human. But then…

“I could levitate Jason.” I said, looking over at him. He looked a bit confused at first but then realised.

“Sure, why not.”

“Wingardium Leviosa” doing a swish and flick motion with my wand. I couldn’t tell if it actually worked or if Jason was just controlling the winds himself but he slowly rose up out of his chair, adopting a free fall stance.

Flitwick clapped from the front of the class. “Very good, very good. No homework tonight. Class dismissed.” Jason lowered himself back into a chair and grinned at me. We picked up our bags and started heading out of the classroom.

“Bloody Hell!” Ron said as we passed him. “Are you all bloody geniuses because… I mean… wow!” We all laughed. And started following Harry, Ron and Hermione out of the front doors and down towards a hut by the edge of the forbidden forest

 

**Hazel’s POV**

 

I wasn’t looking forward to care of magical creatures. I didn’t know much about it, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that it was to do with animals; the problem was, animals hate me. I mean, horses don’t mind me, but all other animals are scared of Pluto’s children, and anyway, when I’m around Percy, horses won’t give me a second glance, except for Arion.

Anyway, we followed Harry, Ron and Hermione out of the castle and through the grounds. We seemed to be heading towards a smallish hut on the outskirts of the forest. By the time we arrived, there was already a small crowd of students gathered around the giant (or was he a half giant) who had been at the boats. I still felt a bit wary of anyone, basically who was taller than Frank, now that the giant war was over. But Percy, Annabeth and Frank had deemed him trustworthy for now and I wasn’t going to argue with them.

“Right then class.” the teacher called over the catering students. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m Hagrid and I’m gonna be teachin’ you Care of Magical Creatures. Now I gotta fun lesson for you lot today. I know that some of you might’ve already been taught about ‘em, but I reckon that more of you might be able to see them now, after… well, anyway.” After what? And how would people not have been able to see them before?

“Anyway!” Hagrid continued. “So we’re gonna be looking at thestrals today so I’ll start with a little bit about ‘em. As most o’ you know, you can only see thestrals if you’ve seen someone… well, die.” No one said anything, but it suddenly all made sense. They’d just had a war which must have involved death. I’d assume that not many of them would’ve ever seen anyone die before that, but now…

“Right, so, anyone know how thestrals were said to ‘ve been crea’ed? Yes, ‘Ermione,”

“Well,” Hermione answered. “The legends say that thestrals were originally created by the three most powerful greek gods: Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. It was one of the few times when they all worked together. Poseidon created there horse like form, Zeus gave them wings to fly and Hades gave them there skeletal appearance and there way of being seen. Of course, there is no way of finding out were they really came from as the greek gods are, as I mentioned earlier, just legends.”

Frank laid a strong hand on Percy’s shoulder to stop him from strangling Hermione. At the same time he leaned towards me, whispering: “Dii Romani tamen …” I laughed and gave him a shove, he pretend to fall over, acting offended and was about to say something when Hagrid continued.

“Well done ‘ermione. Perfect, as always. Now then, let’s have a look at ‘em shall we?” He put two fingers in his mouth and taxi-whistled. Nothing happened at first, but then six or seven horse like things came trotting out of the forest and stood in a line in front of us. They were beautiful. True, they may’ve appeared slightly creepy to some people but if you looked past there black, skeletal appearance, they seemed so gentle, misunderstood. They reminded me so much of my father, it was uncanny. I wouldn’t have needed Hermione to tell me that Pluto/Hades had had a hand in making them.

“Right then.” Hagrid called once the thestrals had arrived. “If you all gather around then you can ‘ave a look at them. They don’t bite.”

The ten of us moved towards the thestral at the end of the line. He came towards us as we moved and nudged his head against Jason’s shoulder.

“I think he likes you.” I laughed, stretching a hand out to stroke it. It didn’t flinch away from me and I smiled. The thestral made a ghostly whining call and Percy laughed. I gave him a ‘what did it say?’ kind of look.

“It’s asking where Nico is. It was the one he was stroking at the carriages.” I laughed. We parted so that Nico could move from the back of the group to the front but he just stood there looking awkward with his hands in his robe pockets. I was about to push him forwards but it turned out I didn’t have to, the thestral trotted towards him. Nico slowly took a hand out of his pocket and stroked it. The thestral made another of its calls.

“Oh no you don’t” Percy said and started concentrating.

“What is it?” Annabeth asked.

“That one just told the others to come and meet the children of the creators, I’m telling them to go away again. It doesn’t take you to work out how suspicious it would look if the thestrals just happened to totally and utterly love us.” We all laughed and went back to stroking our thestral.

After what seemed like no time, the lesson was over and we all headed back up to the castle for break. We have transfiguration next, hopefully one of us will be able to pretend that we can turn Frank into a frog.


	13. Perfume and Prophecies... Kind of

**Frank’s POV (After Transfiguration)**

 

OK, Professor McGonagal is so cool. She can turn into animals too. I mean, fine it’s totally different from me and she can only turn into one particular breed of cat, but still. Then she started talking about animagi and asked if any of us knew an animagus. It then got a bit awkward because some stupid person *cough* Leo *cough*, decided it would be smart to say that I could turn into any animal that I wanted to. Unlike most of the class, sadly, McGonagal believed us and we the had to spend the rest of the lesson explaining that I wasn’t an illegal multi-animagi and that we’d just been joking. On the up-side, it worked. On the down-side, Leo got 5 points from Gryffindor for time wasting and silliness in lessons.

Anyway, we were on our way to divination, we’d started climbing the stairs to the North Tower what felt like 3 hours ago and we were still climbing. I could just see the door at the top of the stairs but I could already smell the perfume coming out of the room, it was sickly sweet and way too flowery.

When we entered the room, my eyes were immediately drawn to the lady standing at the front of the class. She wore a green, rather rag-like dress and shawl. Her hair was very frizzy and held back with a scarf and she was wearing the most unusual pair of goggle-like glasses that I’d ever seen. I looked around the rest of the room. It was filled with circular tables, all containing an assortment of teacups and crystal balls. The tables all had three or four chairs around them. Hazel was already sitting with Piper and Jason so I went and joined Annabeth and Percy.

When everyone had sat down, the teacher raised her hands for silence and began talking in a floaty voice: “Welcome back everyone. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Professor Trelawney. Over the holidays, my inner eye showed me that we would be having some new students this year!” She looked around the room until her eyes fell Hazel’s table. “What’s your name, boy?”  
“Jason”

“I believe you are knew here! Now, many of you will not appreciate the noble and difficult art of divination but, with my guidance, I can teach you to un-shadow the future and maybe, you too shall be able to foresee the comings ad goings of new students!”

“Or you could just read the start of term letter.” Harry whispered to Ron on the next-door table. We laughed.

“Now then,” Trelwaney continued. “You have, on your tables, two different methods of seeing past the mists of time. With the help of your copies of un-fogging the future, I would like you to all try and see if any of the methods work for you. I do not foresee many of you being able to… but for those who can, a bright and terrible future awaits you. You may begin!”

Percy leaned down to get his book out of his bag as Annabeth started ranting: “Bright and terrible future? Because that makes perfect sense and is in no way paradoxical.

“It could be from the Latin,” I suggested. “Clarus: Clear, bright or famous. So it could mean you’ll be famous but have a terrible life or even that it is clear your life will be terrible.” She look a bit put out but then laughed.

“And, who’s the daughter of the wisdom goddess? I thought descendants of Ares were meant to be a bit…well I wouldn’t say that class academics as there strongest suit, no offence. But maybe Mars is different.”

“I’ve got some Poseidon blood in me, I guess.” I laughed

“Then it’s even more of a miracle that you can even remember your own name!”

“Oi!!!!” Percy shouted. “Rude!!!”

“Shut up, Seaweed brain.” Annabeth laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

“Ahhhh, young love!” A dreamy voice said from behind me. I turned to see Professor Trelawney standing there. I smiled at her and pretended to be staring into the crystal ball. “Well, Mr… Zhang” she continued, un-subtly looking at the front of my book for my name. “You need not pretend to me that you have been gazing. I sense that you are not properly equipped for the more passive art of divination. You follow the road of fighting, war and fire, though I sense you fear the flames.” Ron smirked at her odd voice and predictions but she did seem scarily accurate…ish.

“Sorry, professor. But I’m not afraid of fire!” I said it more to convince myself that I’d got over the fear than to contradict her. Ron laughed harder.

“If you say so.” She drawled and glid (yes that is a word … sort of) over to the other side of the table.

“And you!” she faced Percy. “You are wild and ferocious like the seas I foresee you sadly drowning in. I hate to tell you the news my dear, but you should make the most of your time on this Earth before you meet your sad and watery grave alone.” Percy tried to look solemn and sad but I could see how difficult it was for him to keep a straight face. I, on the other hand, just burst out laughing (we’ve been doing that a lot since we came to Hogwarts). So the son of Poseidon would drown. Sure he would.

I thought she was finally going to go away. 2 dodgy predictions were enough. But when she spoke again, this time to Annabeth, there seemed to be more than one voice coming out of her mouth, and none of them were hers

 

**Percy’s POV**

 

It’s official. Trelawney is mad. So, apparently, Frank is war like and follows the ‘road of fighting’. I mean, I know he’s a son of Mars and all but really, everyone would say he is the least war like son of a war God you’ll ever meet.

And apparently, I am, and I quote ‘wild and ferocious’. I know that I can’t see what other people think of me but I’m pretty certain that I’m as far from wild and ferocious as it gets. Oh, and I’m going to drown… In the ocean… like, my Dad’s terrain. Yeah right. 

Which meant that I wasn’t worried when Professor Trelawney put on a funny oracle impression and started talking to Annabeth:

 

“You shall betray the one you love most

And due to you he will drown

When one who two have met before

Sets water and lightning against each other

All worlds must make their choice”

 

I mean, she can’t’ve heard a real prophecy before in her life. They always rhyme, well almost always. There was that weird one which Mars gave Frank but maybe they don’t have to rhyme if they’re directly given by a deity. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think much of the prophecy. And neither did the others. Except for Annabeth.

The class had been dismissed and I was just walking out with Frank when I realised Annabeth wasn’t next to me. I turned around and saw her still sitting at the desk, scribbling stuff down on a bit of paper.

“Hey, Wise Girl, what are you doing?” She didn’t answer so I leaned over her shoulder and took a slight intake of breath when I realised that she was scribbling notes around a copy of Trelwany’s ‘prophecy’ which she’d copied down.

I looked back at the bit of paper, reading what she’d written.

 

You shall betray to one you love most - Percy - but why would I betray him? - How will I betray him?

And due to you he will drown - He can’t - Drown in something other than water? - What?

When on who two have met before - Nyx? Tartarus?

Sets water and lightning against each other - Percy and Jason? Thalia?

All worlds must make their choice - “Or cause a world to make worlds end”

 

“Oh, Annabeth, you can’t be taking that seriously?! She’s obviously a phoney. I mean, _I’m_ wild and ferocious and am going to drown. There just for show.”

She nodded, folding up the scrunching up the bit of paper and throwing it into the bin. For a moment, she looked slightly scared, but when she looked up at me, she smiled, standing up and taking my hand.

“So what do we have next?” she asked.

“Lunch.” I replied, and with that we walked out of the door. At the time, I didn’t notice as she flicked her wand behind her back and the piece of paper came whizzing out of the bin back into her hand


	14. Potions and DADA

**Annabeth’s POV**

 

I took Percy’s hand and let him lead me down to the lunch hall. I didn’t pay much attention to the people talking around me or the food on my plate. I tried to think straight, but all I could hear was Trelawny’s voice, echoing around my head: “ _You will betray the one you love most…”_. But I wouldn’t, I never would, I love Percy and he loves me. _‘He won’t listen to you, he doesn’t care!”_ But he does! He does care, more than anything!

“Earth to Annabeth, Earth to Annabeth!” Percy’s hand waved infant of my eyes. “Have you been listening to what any of us were saying?”

“People were talking, none of them me. I must’ve filtered.” He laughed

“Well it’s time for lessons wise-girl. Potions then defence against the dark arts. And then I get to swim in the lake and meet the giant squid!”

“You know normal people don’t get excited about freezing cold lakes seaweed brain.”

“And who ever loved normal?” He batted his eyelids at me, sarcastically, then got up and started walking towards the door. “Come on!” and with that we headed towards potions.n

 

“Come on then!” A cheery voice came from the front of the class. “Quick, quick, take a seat or everyone will have started without you!” Percy and I sat down between Nico and Piper who were already flicking through their potions books. A plump, jolly looking man in a tweed suit came bouncing up to us.

“Now then, more new students! Introduce yourself why don’t you.” We did. “Very good, very good. Now I’m Professor Slughorn and I’m your potions master this year. Bit of a depressing lesson today but necessary, very necessary. We’re brewing poisons today, pick any that you like out of your book and try brew it as well as you can, doesn’t have to be a deadly one. To cheer things up a bit though, I thought we’d make it a bit of a competition. I’ll take into account how well you brewed it and how difficult it was. You may start!”

I grabbed my book out of my bag and started flicking through: amortentia; antidotes; dreamless sleep (that could come in handy); felix felicis; poisons. I passed page after page of poisons from mild to deadly. I didn’t want anything too hard but a small part of me felt like I should still do a proper, strong poison, just to make a good impression. I eventually found one which seemed to fit my categories

 

**_Potion no. 86 - (moderate difficulty but rare ingredients)_ **

 

_Put the syrup of hellebore into the cauldron on a low heat until it is simmering_

_Stir 3 times counterclockwise_

_Add the dandelion roots and stir once clockwise_

_Crush three large scarab beetles and add the juices to the cauldron_

_Leave to simmer for a further 10 minutes giving half a clockwise stir every 2 minutes_

_Remove the cauldron from the heat_

_Add the powdered moonstone and stir gently (3 times counterclockwise followed by twice clockwise)_

 

It seemed easy enough so I started gathering together my ingredients. As I was doing this, I glanced over at what page Percy’s book was open at:

 

**_Draught of Living Death - (advanced difficulty)_ **

 

He already had his ingredients and was following the recipe… except, he wasn’t following it.

“Percy,” I whispered. “It says cut the Sopohorous beans not crush. And there’s only meant to be 12!”

“I know but… it sounds weird and all, but I just think that crushing them’s better and I did 12 at first but the potion felt like it needed more sopohorous beans so I added 2 more. I don’t know why. It’s too late know anyway!”

“Okaaayy…” I replied, hesitantly. I wasn’t convinced, but I needed to worry about my own potion right now. I started following the recipe and it was going well.

 

I was stirring my potion for the final time during its simmering period, I looked over to see how Percy was coping with his potion. It looked perfect. But he wasn’t doing what the recipe said. I watched him add in extra ingredients and stirs, almost completely ignoring the book.

I would have told him about it, pointed out to him that he was doing it wrong but he seemed… in control. His eyes seemed to flash with every colour change of the potion and the liquid acted like it was obeying him. It was as if it was talking to him, telling him how to make it correctly.

_Suddenly, Percy’s eyes flashed storm grey. The liquid darkened as it rose from the cauldron and started swirling towards me, wrapping around my throat, squeezing all of the air out of my lungs. I was choking in it, drowning. I tried to get him to stop, to see reason. I tried shouting “Percy!”_

“I know, I know! I really should follow the instructions but this just seems better.” I shook my head, Percy’s voice bringing me back to reality. He grinned at me, his eyes their normal colour again. “Yours looks good.” He smiled, leaning over my shoulder to look at the book. It looked alright. The book said it should be pitch black and mine was more of a very dark grey but apart from that.

I heard some noise from the front of the class and looked up to see Slughorn walking down the aisles examining peoples potions. In the second I took my eyes off it, Percy grabbed the ladle in my cauldron and, before I could stop him, gave the potion an extra 1/4 clockwise stir and 2 clockwise.

“Percy!!!” I shouted, but as I was about to protest, my potion darkened slightly, becoming a perfect pitch black.

“See!” He gloated. “Liquids are my thing. I can just sense them, it’s like I can control the potions!”

 _I wouldn’t bother, he’ll never change!_ ‘Shut up!’ I thought as the voice from my dream echoed through my head again.

“Very nice!” I heard Slughorn say as a leaf withered in my potion but I wasn’t really paying attention. “Very nice indeed. Now, Mr. Jackson’s turn.” I looked up as Slughorn took another leaf from his pocket. The second the tip touched the surface, the leaf began to fall apart, forcing Slughorn to drop the dying plant as the poison seeped through it.

“I am glad I do not have you as an enemy young man. A most perfect example of an extremely difficult potion. I don’t think I could’ve brewed it better my self. 20 points to Gryffindor!” Slughorn turned to face Harry. “Mr Potter, I think you may have a rival for top student.” He winked at Percy.

“Class dismissed!”

 

 

 

 

**Percy’s POV**

 

I was enjoying Hogwarts so far. The wizarding world seemed pretty fun and all of the lessons had gone quite well so far: We’d all made a good impression in charms (even though I think only Annabeth was actually using real magic); Care of magical creatures was cool too, but again, I think we had a slight advantage; transfiguration was a bit of a mess, a funny mess, but a mess all the same with Frank’s … incident; divination, however, was total minotaur dung, I can see why Hermione quit. But then there was potions. Potions is awesome! Fine, so maybe I’m biased ‘cause I’m kind of good at it, but still. So, anyway, I’m looking forward to finding out what DADA will be like now.

All of the tables had been pushed to the side of the DADA classroom and the people who had already arrived were milling around in the middle of the room. The teacher was standing at the front of the classroom behind a desk, leaning against the wall. He had longish shaggy blonde hair and stormy eyes. Unlike all the other teachers at Hogwarts, he was wearing casual clothes. He was wearing dark jeans and a t-shirt which showed visible muscle beneath it. He looked more like someone you’d find in New Rome than at a wizarding school but I saw no reason to question it.

When everyone had arrived and was waiting, he casually pushed himself up off the wall and began walking around us. Eventually, he spoke:

“Right then class, my name is Cavallo Cielo but for formalities and all that, you have to call me Professor Cielo. I know that many of you have studied a lot of DADA outside of lessons and most of you have used it in real situations. Our exchange students were fortunate enough not to be at the Battle of Hogwarts but I’m sure that they’ve had their own adventures back in America.” He looked around at us, I nodded slightly. “Anyway, I’m going to be recapping some old stuff with you and adding some new and more difficult spells to your repertoire. We’re going to start today with quite a fun but very tricky spell; the patronus charm. Now I know that it’s a charm so is probably Flitwck’s area blah blah blah etc. but it comes under defence so you’re going to learn it with me as well. This spell takes a lot of concentration, you have to think of an extremely happy memory and say the incantation ‘Expecto Patronum’. Now split off into pairs with the person next to you and give it a practise.”

I looked to my left to pair up with Annabeth but she was already moving into space with Piper. Everyone else paired off leaving just me and Nico.

“Come on then,” I grinned. “Now that everyone else has moved off, we can keep the centre of the room.”

I got out my wand and started to concentrate. I thought about my underwater kiss with Annabeth, the happiness filling me up. Waving my wand, I said the incantation.

I’m not really sure what a patronus is meant to look like so I’m not sure if I did it right. What happened for me was that a huge burst of silver light appeared out of my wand. It was mostly just mist but from some angles it seemed to have a sort of form.

I looked around the room to see how everyone else was doing. Leo and Jason were doing about as well as I was. Annabeth’s looked kind of like an owl. Harry, however, had a fully grown silver stag cantering around him and his friends along with an otter and a jack russell terrier.

Assuming that those were what patronuses were meant to look like, I tried again. Concentrating as hard as I could, I thought of Camp Half Blood, all of the seven still alive, Gaia dead and I was going to be with my wise girl forever, no more primordial deities…

Suddenly, a horse burst out of my wand, it was huge and silver and began running around the room, knocking other animals out of the way in its excitement. I laughed as an owl joined it.

It seemed like everyone was getting the hang of patronus charms. Soon, there were animals everywhere: a dove; an eagle; a cat; a bear; a dolphin; a wolf and a phoenix.

“Has yours got a form yet, Nico?” I asked, realising that there wasn’t anything even vaguely Nico-ish in the crowd of animals.

“Nope. Don’t know if it will, I mean, what animal would represent me. Animals hate me.”

“No clue, but try not to summon up cerberus, cause that would really take some explaining.”

I could see the concentration as he tried again and again until suddenly a silver thestral joined the group of animals.

“Oh, of course it would be that.” I laughed and he sort of grinned. Checking that no one was too close by, I continued: “On a totally unrelated note though. Do you think that the professor could be a descendant of Athena, I’ve never seen anyone with such grey eyes who wasn’t?”

“Grey eyes?” Nico looked concerned.

“Yeah, didn’t you see, almost exactly like Annabeth’s.”

Nico glanced over his soldier to where Professor Cielo was standing. “Oh yeah, grey eyes. Not sure, he might be a legacy. Yeah, grey eyes” his talking faded and he began muttering to himself.

“Okay class, I think you have all managed to do this now. I’m impressed. Now that’s your first day of the year over. You are all free to go.”


	15. The Lake and Quidditch

**Nico’s POV**

 

Grey eyes, Percy had said. But Professor Cielo didn’t have grey eyes. He had blue eyes, sky blue eyes, blonde hair and a California tan, just like… And what was up with his name? Cavallo Cielo, it’s definitely Italian but it’s not a proper name it would be like calling an American…

“You coming down to the lake, Nico?” Percy laughed as he hurtled down the stairs from the dormitory in blue swimming trunks with tridents on them and an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt.

“Towel?” Annabeth said to Percy through gritted teeth

“You know I don’t…”

“Well how else will you get dry?” She motioned her head towards Harry, Ron and Hermione who were now chatting with Ginny. “You know, you’re going swimming, you’re going to get wet!”

“Oh, yeah. Silly me, I left it upstairs.” He ran upstairs and was soon back down carrying a Finding Nemo towels. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

“Come on then,” Thalia called, pushing the portrait hole open. “Lets get this over and done with.”

“And after the lake, Quidditch!” Ron said, pushing his way out of the common room. The people who wanted to fly had there broom sticks with them but that wasn’t many of us. Hazel, Percy and I obviously weren’t going to and Thalia’s scared of heights. Frank said that he would only leave the ground in the form of a bird (not in front of the wizards of course) and Annabeth ‘wasn’t in the mood’. Jason was the only one who’d actually bought a broomstick but Piper said that she might borrow someones and have a go at some point. We’d all agreed that Leo should never ever be allowed to fly, whatever happened. He might start thinking he was Johnny Storm, jump off his broom and shout ‘flame on’.

“Cool,” Leo shouted. “Last one to the lake is a pile of minotaur dung!” And with that (and a questioning look from the people who didn’t know much about minotaurs) we all rushed out of the castle

 

The air outside was warm for the end of summer. Well, when I say warm, I’m talking British warm which would class a cold for American summer but warm for winter. Ron still seemed shocked at the ease with which he’d convinced Percy to agree to going in the lake. Percy was having to be held back by Annabeth who was lecturing him in Greek

“ _Now, remember.”_ she said grabbing hold of his arm…

“ _I know, I know, I’m not totally stupid, I just really want to swim.”_ he gave her his seal pup eyes but she still held on.

_“I know you’re not stupid but you don’t normally have to think about this kind of thing. So, remember: you can’t be dry when you get out of the water; don’t stay under for longer than humanely possible; don’t play with the squid because someone_ **_will_ ** _notice and above all, no starting a water fight because you’ll just get Leo and Jason competitive and someone will end up on fire or electrocuted.”_

Percy saluted, returning to English. “Yes ma’am.” and with that he threw his top on the ground and dived in.

 

“Do you think he’s alright?” Harry asked checking his watch.

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Annabeth sighed. “He’s got big lungs, he does it all the time.”

“But five minutes is a long time to not resurface. He can’t do that very often?” Hermione put in.

“Oh you’d be surprised!” Annabeth checked her own watch this time.

Eventually, after about five more minutes, the surface began to ripple and Percy’s head appeared. After noticing Annabeth tapping her wrist, he began fake gasping for breath before wading to shore, dripping wet.

Piper passed him a towel because Leo was too busy laughing: “ _Now you know how the rest of us feel when we have to go swimming”_

“And how long do you call that?” Annabeth asked as Percy came over towards us.

“Watch out mate, angry girlfriend alert!” Ron laughed.

“It wasn’t that long was it?” Percy shrugged innocently. “Like 10 minutes or so. I mean the world record is 20 so it was hardly that good. Certainly humanely possible”

“Pretty impressive if you ask me.” Harry called from where he was sitting under a tree, throwing and catching a small gold object.

“Well it was fun anyway, and I met the giant squid. He’s lonely down there and was glad of a chat. He’s called Tarquin Cuthbert Humphrey Botherington-Smythe the third…”

“That is soooooo not a name!” Hazel laughed.

“Yes it sooooooo is!” Percy defended. “First name: Tarquin. Middle name: Cuthbert. Catholic saints name from confirmation: Humphrey and double barrelled surname: Botherington-Smythe. And then he has to specify the third because there were two Tarquin Cuthbert Humphrey Botherington-Smythes before him. See!”

“I guess…”

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it is, of course, all just a joke. I obviously didn’t talk to the squid and I used magic to let me stay under for that long. Duhh!” He winked at Annabeth and me. Nobody said anything. “Oh fine, I see you don’t understand my sense of humour. Come on then, let’s go see Jason fall off a broom!”

 

**Jason’s POV**

 

I couldn’t wait to try playing quidditch. We walking up towards the pitches and Ron was explaining the rules to me:

“There a seven people on a quidditch team: Three chasers, that’s the position which Ginny normally plays.”

“But I was seeker for a bit when Harry got banned…” Ginny added

“Hang on, we’re coming to seeker soon.” Ron scowled. “The chasers job is to score points by throwing the quaffle through one of the hoops. Then there’s two beaters who’s job is to hit the bludgers away from there own team and towards the opponent. The hoops are guarded by the keeper, that’s me…”

“Only if the captain thinks you’re good enough!” Harry laughed. “And then there’s a seeker. The seeker has to try and catch the golden snitch, if they catch it then they score 150 points for their team and end the game. I’m seeker.”

“Only if the captain thinks you’re good enough!” Ron mimicked.

“Ok, I’ll just ask the captain now.” Harry laughed, turning to an invisible person next to him. “Oh, captain Harry! Who do you think would make a good seeker this year?… Oh, I don’t know Harry” he turned so he was facing where he’d been standing. “You’re normally quite good… well thanks, do you think I could be seeker again this year then… Sure Harry, you’re hired!” Ron rolled his eyes.

By this time, the four of us had reached the pitch, the others were lagging behind a bit.

“Ok then,” Harry said. “Shall we do some two vs one attacks first. Good way to teach Jason to fly and it should get Ron warmed up for the season, that way he’ll have a better chance of being picked for the team!”

“So,” Harry continued, turning to me. “Flying a broom is a mixture of mental and manual control. Once you’re up in the air, you’re in control of the broom, it will listen to you but you have to do some of the work yourself for instance, you can’t expect it to pull out of a wronski faint all by itself.” I had no idea what a wronski faint was but I left that for the moment, I just wanted to start flying. “So, you’ve got your own broom I see, can I ask what model it is?” I picked it up to have a look,, I wasn’t really sure.

“Bloody Hell!” Ron grabbed it out of my hand. “This is a firebolt supreme!!!! I’ve never even seen one of these, well not a real one. You must be sooooooo rich, I’m not sure even Harry could afford one of these. There’s no way you bought this as your first broom! You don’t even know if you can fly!”

“Well, I just thought…”

“I’m not saying you will be, mate, but if you’re rubbish and decide to quit, can I have your broom?”

“RON!” Ginny scolded. “Don’t mind him, he can’t tell the difference between polite and rude. I’m sure you won’t be rubbish, it really isn’t that hard.” And with that, she swung one leg over her broom and took off into the air.

“Well, you’ve seen Ginny do it now. Just push off hard from the ground and let the broom do the rest of the work.” He and Ron took off too, leaving me on the ground. ‘How hard can it be?’ I thought to myself, and with that I kicked off.

 

Quiditch is officially the best sport ever!!! It’s similar to flying on the winds but it’s less tiring and I don’t have to be alone. It turns out I’m actually kind of good at Quiditch if I may say so myself. I think that having a fast broom helped but I managed to score quite a few goals (although Ron was an amazing goalie so saved loads). I didn’t want to stop playing, but we had to land eventually to go in.

“You’re a natural.” Harry complimented as we walked back up towards the castle. “You’ve got to try out for the team, you’d make a great chaser along with Ginny. Try outs are next weak.”

“Sounds cool.” I replied. “I’ll be there”


	16. Howlers and Draco

**Nico’s POV**

 

Term flew by pretty uneventfully. We’d been at Hogwarts for about 5 weeks so were nearing the time when Mid-term break would normally appear, but it seemed that Hogwarts didn’t actually have a holiday until Christmas. Nothing odd had happened much since our first week: Trelwany hadn’t made any more prophecies; Leo hadn’t publicly lit himself on fire and Annabeth hadn’t had any more nightmares as far as we were aware. Jason was now a chaser on the Gryffindor quiditch team and has been training most nights, ready for the upcoming match against Hufflepuff next week. On the whole, we were all improving at magic and didn’t have to cheat anymore… well, not much

Anyway, we were all down in breakfast and the post owls started arriving. I never got any post, some of the others did, but I guess that was because they actually wrote to camp. I hadn’t written to anyone all term. And that was why I was so surprised when a raven flew into the hall with the owls and dropped a bright red envelope which landed on the table in front of me.

I was hungry that morning so I decided to just put it to the side and read it later. I’d only just re-started eating my bacon and eggs when Ron tapped me on the shoulder.

“You might want to open that, mate. Someones sent you a howler!”

“What’s a…?”

I didn’t get time to finish my question, the letter answered for me. It suddenly exploded open, unfolding into a mouth. My first thought was, ‘what the Hades?’. Then it began to speak and my opinion changed to more like ‘I’m dead’. The letter turned away from me so it was facing the others and started speaking in a voice that I’d recognise anywhere.

“Hey guys, nice to hear form you. We’ve all loved receiving your letters at c… school. Chiron read out some of the best ones. The Stolls nearly died laughing at your first charms lesson. I don’t think you’ll ever hear the end of that one, Leo. Everything's pretty normal hear. Grover spends all his time with Juniper. Coach Hedge is still showing off Chuck to everyone who will listen and basically everything’s pretty much back to how it was before.

“So yeah, that’s kind of all. It was so nice to her from the nine of you. Actually, wait a minute, I could’ve sworn that ten of you left. Yeah, there was that other kid. What was his name again, Nick, Nicky, Nicholas…”

Percy looked like he was about to die laughing, Jason was trying to stop himself from breaking down but he wasn’t doing a great job. Through his hysteria, Leo managed to breath out my name before breaking down again. Somehow, Will had managed to time the damn letter to turn towards me and start talking again at the exact same time Leo spoke.

“Yeah, that was it. Nico! Remember me? I’m that guy, Will, from school. The one you promised to write to, cause I swear, my threat about my father still stands!”  
Practically the whole hall was looking now, I was so tempted to melt into the shadows, it was taking all my will power to remain solid.

“Don’t think you can just melt into the shadows and avoid me!” (can he read my mind?) “‘Cause I bet that the whole schools listening to this and, unless you want me to start shouting about your most embarrassing moments… Nah, just kidding, I’m not that mean… yet. But, by Apollo, if you go until Christmas without writing once, I will personally send Clarisse after you. I mean, I’d come myself but I’m not one for violence, healer not harmer and all that. Now you might be thinking that she’s not that bad but if you dodge her then… DEATH BY HAIKU IT SHALL BE!!!!!!!!!!”

Finally, the letter turned back to the others and said in a really monotone voice. “Hope you have a great rest of term. Yours sincerely, Will Solace, Cabin 7”

And with that, the letter tore itself into shreds and floated down to the table.

**Ron’s POV**

 

Wow! Someone was mad at Nico, I couldn’t help laughing at the message, I mean it was obviously jokily mad, probably his best friend or someone.

“Nico?” I asked leaning over into their group. The nine of them were hunched over laughing as Nico crossed his arms and… was he blushing. “What was that about mate?”

“Nothing.” He mumbled.

“Shall I tell Solace that.” Leo asked, jokily.

“‘Cause I don’t think it was nothing” Jason laughed

“Neither,” Frank joined in. “I mean he threatened you with Clarisse, he must be serious.”

“Who’s Clarisse?” I asked but they ignored me.

“Not just Clarisse.” Percy laughed. “He threatened haikus. I mean it doesn’t get much worse than that.”

“What’s so bad abut a poem?” Hermione questioned joining the conversation but they, again, didn’t answer.

“Will writes to Nico.” Thalia said in a sing song voice.

“Nico is scared of Solace” Percy picked up the rhythm

“This Haiku is great!!!!” Jason finished off and they all laughed apart from Hazel who put her arm round a now definitely blushing Nico.

“Come on guys, lay off him. I don’t know how Will even managed to send a howler but it was pretty harsh” She said and they all stopped immediately but not begrudgingly. “We should probably go to lessons. Tuesdays aren’t that bad, I’ve only got 3 lessons: Herbology, transfiguration then 3 frees and potions to finish it off.”

“You guys coming?” Percy turned to us, and with that we all left the Great Hall to get our books

 

**Draco’s POV (bet you didn’t expect that!!!)**

 

The war was over now and life sucked. I mean, it wasn’t that He Who Must Not Be Named Was Dead, or that Slytherins were now even more hated than ever, it was the fact that McGonagal had forgiven us, the children of the enemy, and allowed us back to Hogwarts for a final year along with the rest of our age group. That was the sort of debt I could never repay, none of us could and I just couldn’t understand why she’d done it. We were the enemy, we thought against them and yet here we were in potions with the brave and noble Gryffindors, as far as an outsider could see, equals.

But life was different now, when my father had been told that he was only going to have to spend 6 months in Azkaban I thought that things would soon be normal again but I was wrong. When he returned he argued with mother all the time, I didn’t know what it was about but something had definitely happened, if only I could figure out what, maybe I could fix things between them…

“Well, Draco, how is your potion going?” I looked up to see Slughorn staring into my cauldron, we were making dizziness potions today, they required a lot of stirring.

“Well done, you seem to have got it almost perfect but I fear that you have yet to add in the right number of stirs at the end.” he stared down at my book. “Yes, it says 7 stirs counterclockwise, not one.” I heard Weasley smirk at my mistake but I ignored it.

“Of course, Sir.” I said and gave it another 6 stirs causing the potion to darken from deep to navy blue.

“Perfect,” Slughorn was bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I’m sure it would make even the most sure-footed of us fall over.” And with that he bounced off to the next pupil.

I stared down at the book, the letters scrambling themselves before my eyes randomly, I shook my head, focussing hard to try and bring them into view. I think that my dyslexia’s getting worse at the moment, normally it doesn’t affect me badly. I drummed my fingers on the desk impatiently, not sure what else to do while I waited for Slughorn to check all of the potions and end the final lesson of the day. God I hated sitting still. Soon the lesson ended and I packed up myself and started to head towards the door.

“Nice potion, Malfoy!” Weasley sneered. “Can’t read?” Harry laughed, the exchange students who were with them looked confused, I guess they didn’t know. But neither did Weasley

I mean he, Potter and Granger obviously still hated me and I didn’t blame then, I’m not ashamed to admit that I was in the wrong. I knew I was in the wrong from the start, I could tell we would loose, it was obvious, all of the strategies were wrong, but I stuck with my parents through some stupid sense of loyalty and family pride. I was going to stay at Hogwarts at the end but one pleading look from mother and I knew I just couldn’t do that to her, however wrong she was. Nothing I did was because I thought it was right, I wish I’d just gone with the side I knew would win, the ‘good’ side. And now I had that stupid mark on my left arm to show for it.

But I was trying to make up for it. I was drawing away from some of the other Slytherins, the ones who were still set to follow the legacies of ‘our master’. But I wasn’t about to totally give in to the ‘golden trio’ because whatever I did, they would never lay off me.

“At least I’ve got my own book to read, Weasley. How many people had yours before you? 5, oh wait, no, it was your father before William even got it.”

“My father may have had my book before me but I’d rather he had that then a sentence to Azkaban for being a treacherous little bar…”

“Woah!!!” One of the Americans cut him off. She was tall and blonde with grey eyes like mine. “There’s no need for that kind of talk, Ron. If he hasn’t done anything then leave him alone and if he has done enough to make you angry then he isn’t worth your breath.”

“Annabeth’s right.” Hermione huffed. “Come on, I’m going.” The golden trio stalked off along with some of the Americans who had been with them leaving just two of them: the girl, Annabeth I think Hermione had called her and the boy, Percy, Slughorn’s favourite.

“Thanks, I guess.” I extended my hand. “Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.” They both introduced themselves, shaking my hand.

“So what was that about?” Percy asked.

“Well…” I didn’t know what to tell them but I supposed the the truth was the best. Weasley would tell them anyway when they returned to Gryffindor common room. “I was on the wrong side in the war, I fought with my parents against Hogwarts and, as you would guess, they’re still slightly pissed off about that.”

I don’t know what I expected them to say or do about it but I certainly didn’t expect them to do nothing.

“Okaaaay,” I laughed slightly. “I know that you’re new to Hogwarts but have you not yet found the natural Gryffindor instinct to hate Slytherins. Especially ones with Death Eater parents?”

“We weren’t here for the war. I don’t even know what a death eater is but it’s a weirder name. We don’t know who’s good and bad.” Annabeth said.

“And no, we haven’t learnt that ‘Gryffindor instinct’ as you call it. I don’t believe in stereotypes and I know nothing about your parents. Even if you did, our generation shouldn’t take on our parents traits and feuds.” Percy continued, putting an arm around Annabeth.

“Also,” she continued, they're so in sync it was ridiculous. “neither of us no _you_. I think that it’s good to form your own opinions of people, not to inherit others. Isn’t that right Percy?”

“On the nail, Wise Girl.” They are so a couple, it’s obvious.

“Well,” I wasn’t really sure what to say. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Nice to meet you then Draco,” Annabeth smiled. “But we should probably getting back to the common room. See you around.” And with that, they both turned and left, chatting to each other casually.

So that is it, for the first time in years, I seem to have made two new friends.


	17. More Quidditch and Owls

**Annabeth’s POV**

 

“And that’s Macavoy with the quaffle, streaking towards the goal posts and it doesn’t look like the gryffindor beaters are going to catch him. Is he going to take the take the shot? He does and… what a save from Weasley there!!!” A huge cheer went up from the Gryffindors as they all started chanting

“Weasley is our King, Weasley is our King, He never lets the Quaffle in, Weasley is our King!!!”

Percy nudged me, laughing as he started to join the song: “Weasley can save anything, he never leaves a single ring, that’s why Gryffindors all sing: Weasley is our King.”

The match was going amazingly, well not if you’re in Hufflepuff. It was currently 200-20 and I could tell that Harry was purposefully not catching the snitch so that the score could get even higher.

“And there goes Grace, whizzing towards Fleet the Hufflepuff seeker. Boy is he fast on that firebolt supreme, I wouldn’t mind one of those myself. He’s closing fast , ducking under a bludger. Peakes hits the bludger back at McManus and Grace is almost at the hoops. He shoots. He scores!!! Ten more points to Gryffindor!” Everyone cheered as the score dial rose still further. “I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that Jason Grace seems to be the best thing to happen to the Gryffindor quidditch team since Potter. He’s scored almost half the goals this match, even more than Weasley. Just wait ‘till he gets a shot at the Slytherins, we’ll show them…”

“Mr Finnegan, please!!!” McGonagal scolded.

“Sorry professor. Oh and what’s going on here? Potter’s diving, Summerby's following behind but he’s no match for Potter’s speed. Is it just a feint or has he seen the snitch? And Potter’s pulling up just above the ground, I think it was a feint but… What’s that in Potter’s hand? Harry Potter has caught the golden snitch. 150 points to Gryffindor making it 360-30 which I think is a new record. Gryffindor wins!!!”

Cheers erupted from the red and gold stands. There were a few boos from the Slytherins but they were drowned out by the rest of the crowd.

 

“Bow to your King!” Ron laughed as Hermione, Percy, Leo, Thalia, Piper and I ran onto the pitch to congratulate the team. Leo fell to his knees and kissed Ron’s shoes, grovelling.

“Don’t.” Hermione scolded, pulling Leo out of the mud. “You’ll only encourage him.”

“But I did well!” Ron moaned.

“I know,” Hermione smiled, giving him a kiss.

“And here comes ‘the best thing to happen to the Gryffindor quidditch team since Potter’” Piper mocked as her boyfriend came over and hugged her.

“Not to shabby, hey?” Jason said, throwing her over his shoulder and spinning her around until she finally agreed that he was indeed ‘not too shabby’.

“Not to shabby?” Harry joined us. “You were, not meaning to sound like Ron, bloody brilliant. If by ‘best thing since Potter’ they meant me, they were way out. You must be the best thing since Potter senior.”

“Apart from our King!!!” Leo shouted, dancing round Ron as he broke out into song again.

“You should have a go, Thalia. If you’re anything like your brother, who I think was probably born from the sky itself, then you’ll be great.” Harry grinned

“No”

“Oh come on, I bet you’d make a great beater. I mean Cootes is kind of rubbish compared to the rest of the team.”

“NO!”

“Are you su…”

“No way am I playing quidditch!!!”

“Oh come on Thals,” Leo grinned evily. “If Jason was, as Harry thinks, born from the sky itself then you must’ve been too.” Thalia gave Leo a glare which would’ve made Gaia run for cover. Leo stopped talking and we all started to make our way back to the castle without further mention of Thalia’s quidditch career.

We’d just reached the castle when I saw Slughorn bouncing down the hallway towards us. “Hello, Professor.” I smiled.

“Ah, Miss Chase, Mr Jackson, exactly the people I wanted to bump into. I have a little group which we affectionately call the ‘Slugclub’. I see it as my duty as a teacher to allow extraordinary students to meet other extraordinary students. I believe that you two both class as extraordinary students and I’d like to invite you to dinner tonight. I know it’s short notice, but if you’re not too busy…”

“That would be lovely professor.” Percy answered.

“Splendid, splendid. Mr Potter, Miss Granger and Miss Weasley will be there as well. You can bring a friend if you wish but from what I’ve heard, you too will come together.”

“Did I hear someone say party?!!” Leo came bounding into the hallway behind us. “I’m assuming I’m invited.”

“Maybe next time…um… Leon? Maybe next time.” And with that, Slughorn bounced back off down the corridor

 

**Draco’s POV (a bit later in the day)**

 

All I could think about all the way back to the common room was how much I was NOT looking forward to Slughorn’s party.

I don’t even know why he invited me. I tried to turn him down but he’s very insistent that ‘great talent should mingle with other great talent’. I’m not sure why he wants me there, I mean, sure, I’m good at potions, top of the class behind Potter and Jackson and his girlfriend but you’d think he’d know that Potter and I don’t mix well and he will have definitely invited Mr Perfect Potter.

When I reached my dorm, I changed into a suit and tie and stared making my way towards Slughorn’s office where the pre-party drinks were starting. I was trying to think of how dinner conversations might pan out:

‘“Oh, and how’s your aunt draco?”

“She’s dead.”

“Ah, how’s your mother coping?

“Alright but she and dad are arguing.”

“Oh, how is your father.”

“Fine, still recovering from being locked in Azkaban for 6 months though.”

I’m not sure that my family would be a good topic of conversation any more.

Eventually, I reached my destination. I could already here people chatting inside so I pushed open the door and entered.

The room looked pretty good actually. There was a large table at one end laid to seat 10. The other end of the room was open space. There were floating platters with glasses on them which replaced themselves whenever anyone took one.

“Ah, Draco, my boy! There you are!” I was engulfed in an awkward hug from Slughorn who then shoed me off to ‘go and mingle’.

Counting who was here already, it looked like I was the last to arrive. I was also the only non-Gryffindor (apart from Luna, but she hangs out with them so much that she might as well be)

“Well if I’d known that Shlughorn was inviting death eaters, I might not’ve come.” I turned to see Weasley there with the usual crowd.

“Well I’m surprised you were even invited, Weasley. I didn’t know Slughorn had such a low opinion of talent. Frankly I’m offended to be classed in the same band as you. Or did you have to convince your girlfriend to take you with her?”

Ron’s ears turned bright red and he looked like he was going to explode.

“Oh, shove off, Malfoy!” Hermione grabbed Ron by the elbow and dragged him off to a different bit of the room.

“You say that they hate you out of ‘Gryffindor instinct’?” I heard a voice from my left and turned.

“Because I think they probably hate you because you’re being an ass.” Annabeth finished for Percy.

“Pardon?” I was not in the mood for a lecture tonight.

“Well, it seems to me that Saviour’s of the world, not that I’ve met a lot of them that is, tend to be pretty forgiving.” She shoved Percy playfully about the middle bit but I ignored him.

“Well they obviously a…”

“Unless.” Annabeth interrupted. “Unless you start calling there friends stupid and poor. I mean, come on, who taught you how to make friends? You’re meant to compliment people.”

“Well, I can’t go compliment them now, can I. They’ll thinking I’m plotting something. Anyway, no one compliments anyone anymore.”

“Of course they do. For example: I like what you’re wearing, Draco, the tie really brings out your eyes.” I could tell she was just trying to prove a point now and there was no way I was going to stop her.

“Fine. What a lovely dress you’re wearing Annabeth, it also matches your eyes. Happy now!” In all fairness, she actually was wearing a lovely dress. It was just above the knee with three quarter length sleeves and a delicate, lacey top half. The grey caught the light so it seemed to shift through different colours.

“Thank you. See that wasn’t too hard, was it.”

“I guess not.” I replied. There was an awkward silence while we all seemed to try and think of something to talk about.

“So, Draco.” Percy finally said. “Tell us about your family” Why did he have to ask that?!

“My family’s… complicated”

“Oh come on, it can’t be as bad as mine!” I didn’t know about his family but I highly doubted it was worse than mine.

“I don’t know. You haven’t met my family. They’re all so desperate to stay pureblood that everyone is related to each other in at least two ways. My family is basically related to every single pureblood wizard left.”

“Well my dad was one of six. He always argues with his two brothers. The oldest of them has like twenty children with about ten different women. And then there’s my Grandad, he’s a total physco, I think he got it from his mum she tried…”

“Percy, I’d probably stop there.” Annabeth gave him a stern look.

“Probably right.” He gave her a lop sided grin.

I was about to say something when Slughorn rang a small bell and told all of us to sit down

 

Dinner wasn’t too bad. The food was great and no one asked any awkward questions. I was sitting opposite Annabeth and Percy, trying not to insult Potter or his friends. I was thinking about compliments and how we’d both mentioned how the others eyes matched their clothes. But our eyes also matched each others. I’d noticed before that they were the same colour, but it wasn’t just that. We had identical eyes.

I’d always assumed that my eyes were from my father, (they obviously weren’t from my mother, hers were blue), but even my father didn’t have exactly my eyes, no one in the family did…

My thoughts were interrupted by Slughorn tapping his spoon against his glass: “Well it’s been so lovely seeing you all, but I’ve just seen the time. Mr Filch will not be happy if I keep you all out of bed. So run along now and I look forward to another of our dinners soon.”

We all muttered our thank yous as we left and I headed back down to Slytherin common room alone.

 

**Nico’s POV**

 

It was late and I still wasn’t tired. I was trying to write to Will but still couldn’t think of what to say exactly. Percy had come back from the party about an hour ago and, as far as I’m aware, fallen straight into bed still in his suit.

I eventually decided that I might as well just post what I’d written so far because I wasn’t go to improve it by just sitting there.

 

_Dear Will,_

 

_Thanks for the howler, very kind of you. I’m still getting used to this whole wizard thing and it was nice of you to teach me another of there methods of communicating by standing me up in front of the school._

_I guess that I kind of deserved it though. I was going to write, honestly, but I wasn’t sure if you’d actually want to hear from me or not, so I left it._

_So I’ve decided to write to save you the trouble of calling in Clarisse or Apollo but it’s not going to be a long letter. I hate writing._

_School’s going well, everyone else is showing off by pretending their powers are magic as you’ve heard but I, sadly can’t. I bet I could if I tried, it’s been ages since Rome but_ someone _won’t let me even try._

_I’m afraid this is as much as I’m going to write. It’s late and my brain keeps trying to write Roman words in Greek letters so I’m going to stop here._

_Miss you and wish you were here (don’t you dare tell anyone else I wrote that or I swear I’ll never say anything of the sort again)_

 

_Love, Nico x_

 

I folded up the bit of paper and scribbled Will’s name followed by Cabin 6 on the front before heading up to the owlery.

It was a nice night through the windows, cold but calm and stary. The sort of night that Bianca used to love. I smiled to myself, thinking about her. They weren’t sad or angry thoughts like I used to have just… memories. She’d chosen re-birth and was probably happier than ever now. I started humming to myself as I walked. I know it’s not very subtle but the corridors were empty and if someone appeared then I was normally quite good at disappearing when I wanted to. Eventually I was singing to myself quietly in Italian:

 

 

_“silenzio, il mio bambino_

_tuo padre vele mare_

_ma il letto è caldo_

_ancore e dormire”_

 

I hadn’t spoken in Italian, let alone sung in it for ages and it felt oddly comforting. Bianca had used to sing me the song as a lullaby and mother sang it to both of us before that. When I’d started singing it around the house in Italy, mother had said that I had the classic, beautiful Italian voice; I was never sure about that but the tune was simple and one of the few memories I had of our family when I was in a reminiscent mood.

 

_“il vento soffia freddo_

_arrabbiato è il mare_

_dio guardia il suo viaggio_

_lo riportano a me”_

 

I kept singing softly as I tried to find Annabeth’s owl, Perseus-Achilles, on the perches. I tied the letter to his leg and told him where to go. Apparently owls can find the destination by themselves and Annabeth had given hers a blessing so it could enter camp.

I was just leaving when a voice behind me almost made me jump: “You’ve actually got quite a good voice.” The boy sitting in the shadows said. How did I not notice him their, he was literally sitting in my domain, I guess I’m out of practise with shadow magic. But now I had to say something, I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or genuinely complimentary so I just went with: “Ummmm, thanks.” then decided to add, “What are you doing up here? It’s late, you’re lucky you didn’t get caught!”

“I know it’s late,” He shrugged, “but I couldn’t sleep. You’re up as well and you haven’t even been here a term, you don’t know your way ‘round the castle as well as me. I’m surprised **you** didn’t get caught. Filch sees everyone and you were hardly being quiet”

I felt suddenly self-conscious about signing, no one had _ever_ heard me sing and Jason would certainly never let me hear the end of it. But I certainly wasn’t going to let this stranger see that side of me so I just smirked: “I’m good at not being seen when I don’t want to be and heard for that matter.” But sudden images of Percy and Leo trying to get me to join in on there duets of ‘I set fire to the rain’ made me think it was better to make sure this boy knew not to accidentally comment to my friends: “ You’d better not tell anyone about this you know, singing is not something my friends need to know about.” Why was I doing this? Being sociable? I didn’t even know his name: “I didn’t catch your name by the way. I’m Nico, Nico di Angleo.” I held out my hand.

“Draco Malfoy.” He stepped forward into the light to shake my hand and as he did, something shifted. I looked up and there, above his head, was a shining grey owl.

“Styx!”


	18. Explanations and Introductions

**Nico’s POV**

 

“Wake up you kelp-headed, fish brained piece of…”

“What in the name of your Dad, Nico are you doing trying to do. It’s like 2 in the morning?” Percy groaned as he sat up.

“Sorry to disturb your beauty sleep but it’s urgent. So I was alone in the owlery with Draco…”

“Oh, so I’m not your type but he is.” I could snap his neck sometimes, I swear and then he’d be stuck with that stupid grin for the rest of death.

“Just shut up and listen. So I was in the owlery and Draco was in the shadows, still not sure how I didn’t notice he was there at first but that’s not the point. He came out of the shadows to introduce himself and there was an owl over his head!”

“Wow, Nico, great story. You were in a room full of owls and you saw an owl over someones head. I’m going back to sleep”

He tried to role over but I grabbed his shoulder. “Not that kind of owl, more like the kind of owl that would’ve appeared over Annabeth’s head once upon a time!”

“Jason!!! Leo!!! Frank!!!” Percy shouted, as he sprang out of bed. The confused sons of Jupiter, Hephaestus and Mars sat up, bleary eyed. “Jason go get Piper, Hazel and Annabeth and then meet me in the common room, it’s seriously urgent. Leo, Nico, Frank, come with me.”

 

Eventually all eight of us were out of the common room and hurrying towards the owlery, having listened to my account of what had happened.

“So this is great and all, Percy, but why did you need to wake me up. It doesn’t take eight people to explain things.” Leo hadn’t quit moaning since we woke him up.

“Well Nico’s coming ‘cause he saw it happen, and I’m here ‘cause I’m the organiser. Annabeth is apparently his half sister so she’s here as well.” Percy turned to face Leo but continued to walk backwards as he did so

“And the rest of us?” Frank asked.

“Well we’re about to tell him that the Gods exist and I’m supposing he might freak out and try to hex us so Piper will convince him to calm down. But he still might not believe us and I thought that what better way to show him we have weird powers than for Jason to fly, Leo to set himself on fire without a wand and Frank to turn into… whatever the hell he wants to turn into. And among all of this he might end up just needing a genuinely nice person and that’s where Hazel comes in”

“Wow, you’ve really thought this through,” Annabeth actually looked slightly impressed with Percy. “But we might as well have just all come rather than leaving the other two”

“Don’t worry, I thought of that too. Because Calypso is a whole ‘nother explanation I mean she is a literal Godess.”

“And yet she still choose Leo.” Jason muttered, earning him a kick.

“And let me guess.” Leo grinned, throwing a small fire ball at Jason who easily sucked away it’s air, putting it out. “We don’t want Thalia because she’ll scare the poor boy off!”

“Exactly!” Exclaimed Percy

We eventually reach the stare case up to the owlery and I quickly sent a silent prayer to the Gods that Draco had remained where he was.

 

 

**Draco’s POV**

 

Okaaaaaay. So I was in the owlery trying to clear my head. I just couldn’t stop thinking about Annabeth’s eyes (not in that way, I know she’s taken). I know it’s an odd thing to obsess over but they were exactly the same colour as mine. Identical!!!

I loved the owlery it was away from the rest of the school, I could always think straight up here when I was alone. Except I wasn’t alone. One of the Americans, Nico, had arrived.

I heard him before I saw him, a haunting tune coming up the stairs. He didn’t notice me at first and I didn’t make myself know I honestly just didn’t want to interrupt the song. I couldn’t understand the words, it was in some other language but I could still sort of understand it: It was sad, but happy, like a mother trying to tell her child a sad story but not being able to say the actual truth aloud so disguising it in happy words.

He looked like he was about to leave and I felt like I should say something before I became a randomer just sitting in the shadows and never making himself known. So I literally said the first ting which popped int my head: “You’ve actually got quite a good voice”

“Ummm, thanks.” He looked confused, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. “What are going up here?” he added. “It’s late, you’re lucky you didn’t get caught!”

“I know it’s late, but I couldn’t sleep. I came up here because it helps me think.” That was the truth but I couldn’t see why he could lecture me about being up late: “You’re up as well and you haven’t even been here a term, you don’t know your way ‘round the castle as well as me. I’m surprised you didn’t get caught. Filch sees everyone and you certainly weren’t being quiet”

He just smirked: “I’m good at not being seen when I don’t want to be and heard for that matter.” He then seemed to remember that he had actually been heard: “You’d better not tell anyone about this you know, singing is not something my friends need to know about. I didn’t catch your name by the way. I’m Nico, Nico di Angleo.” He held out his hand.

“Draco Malfoy.” I replied, standing up out of the shadows to shake his hand but before I could shake it, the light in the room changed and he said something which sounded like a swear word before running off.

I looked up to see where the odd light had been coming from but there was nothing there.

 

So now I wasn’t really sure what to do because I didn’t want to go back to the dungeons but something big had obviously just happened up here (either that or Nico had just remembered that he’d left the oven on). I’d been thinking about this for a while and had finally decided to go back down to the dungeons when I heard noises coming from the bottom of the stairs.

“ _Do you think he’s still up there?”_ One voice said, I think it was Percy.

“ _Shut up, he’ll hear you. Honestly, you’re so unsubtle, sea-weed brain.”_ Definitely Annabeth.

“ _Yeah, but he can’t understand us, I mean…Styx, I guess he probably can.”_ What did they think I was? Stupid? Of course I could understand them, why wouldn’t I be able to.

 **“Ahhh, Percy, parum est tibi peribit, nunc Graeci solum** (Ahhh, Percy, is you’re little Greek trick cut off now.) **”** Someone teased in a language I didn’t understand. **"Reverti ad manderet eris scitis Latine”** (“You’ll have to revert back to the little bits of Latin that you know!”)

Percy huffed. “Oh shut up, Frank.” Annabeth said, “let’s just all stick to English.” And with that the door was pushed open revealing 8 of the Americans standing behind it.

 

**Piper’s POV**

 

“What are you doing here?” Draco asked as we entered the room. “And what did you mean ‘I wouldn’t understand what you were saying’, you were speaking plain, simple English. Just ‘cause you have different accents from me doesn’t mean I don’t understand you when you speak!” Annabeth shot Percy a ‘your fault’ sort of look.

“Basically, we were actually talking in ancient Greek but Percy forgot that you speak ancient Greek too because you’re just like us so it’s in your blood.”

“What are you…” Draco took a step backwards.

“Leo…” Annabeth warned but Leo was already off.

“Well the Greek Gods are actually alive and your Mum is really a Goddess which makes you a demigod or half-blood and…”

“Shut up, Leo!” Annabeth shouted. “You are meant to be slow wth these kind of things, honestly we should of left you behind and brought Calypso…”

“SHUT UP!” Everyone turned to see Draco with his wand pointed at us

“Woah, calm down!” Jason held his hands up in the air, grinning.

“No, I won’t calm down.” Draco stood up, suddenly looking defensive. “I bet Potter sent you to avenge his best friend after the party. Still can’t bear to do his own dirty work so he sent you with some ridiculous story trying to mess with my head and convince me that I’m some kind of half-blood like him. Well I’ll show him what happens to the people he uses…”

“Ok, let’s be reasonable. We don’t want to fight you and if we did, you’re outnumbered 7 to 1 so why don’t you put your wand away…” Percy took a step forward but Draco just took another step away from him.

“Oh I think I’m being perfectly reasonable. None of you are any good at magic. You may have fooled everyone else but not me, I’ve seen you, it’s all slightly wrong: Wrong incantation; wrong wand movement. I bet Potter and Granger are just doing all of the spells non-verbally for you. But if you’re that confident then let’s see how you fair. Sectum…” And with that his wand flew out of his hand and landed in Hazel’s. “But…you…we don’t ever learn wandless magic…how did you…”

“Calm down!” I said, pouring as much charmspeak into it as I could and the whole room obeyed, even the owls.

“Look,” Hazel explained stepping forward. “Although he approached it all wrong, Leo wasn’t lying. We’re demigods, the children of the Greek and Roman Gods and mortals. We inherit some of our parents powers and it allows us to… do cool stuff. I’m a daughter of Pluto, Roman God of death and riches so I can control precious metals. It was how I got your wand, it has silver powder in it.”

“So…I’m a son of…” Draco stammered, still calm but obviously struggling to get his head around the concept.

“Athena.” Annabeth completed for him. “Like me, so we’re technically half siblings. Just out of interest, so we know what to fill you in on, how much mythology do you know?”

“Reasonable amount, I guess. I actually read some books about it when I was younger, I remember most of the names… thinking about it, is Calypso named after her mum or is that just coincidence?”

“Ummm, well, Calypso actually is _the_ Calypso.” Percy said awkwardly.

“You mean there is a Goddess in this school and no one noticed! Bloody Hell! So, who are all of your parents then? If I’m allowed to ask that, I mean I know Annabeth and Hazel but…”

“Leo Valdez, super-sized McShizzle and all round awesome son of Hephaestus.” And just like that he was on fire again, typical. At least until he was doused with a huge wave of water from one of the owls drinking bowls.

“Going for full titles are we? Perseus Achilles Jackson, only son of Poseidon, Earth shaker and God of the seas and ummm quite a lot of other really random stuff like horses.”

“Shut up, big head!” I said rolling my eyes and he did. “I’m Piper McClean, daughter of Aphrodite. My powers called charmspeak and it’s slightly more subtle. I can basically make anyone do whatever I say which is useful because other wise Nico will never introduce himself and will just hide in the shadows. So Nico, introduce yourself!”

“I’m Nico di Angelo, son of Hades. Your turn Frank.”

“Ok. Frank Zhang, son of Mars and well… my powers a bit odd, it’s got nothing to do with Mars it’s just a family thing and it’s easier to show so…” And then in his place was a bear who gave one playful swipe at Leo before transforming back into Frank.”

“And finally, I’m Jason Grace, son of Jupiter.” He floated up into the air and did a couple of backflips.

“Son of Jupiter?” Draco asked thoughtfully.

“Yeah, why?”

“I swear that must class as a cheating advantage in Quidditch, that’s so unfair!”

“Seriously?” Leo grinned. “We just told you that your mother is a goddess and you watched someone turn into a bear and you’re fussed about advantages in Quidditch. Honestly, wizards are so weird!”


	19. Training and Powers

**Nico’s POV**

 

I was bored of being the weak one now. The one with no powers. I mean fine, Annabeth didn’t have any powers but she managed to win pretty much every fight without powers and some of the ones with so no one really noticed. But I couldn’t win the fights without powers and couldn’t win the ones with powers because I couldn’t use mine and I was bored of it! I knew I was strong enough now, it had been ages since Greece, I wasn’t about to melt into the shadows any time soon.

“You alright, death breath?” I looked up to see Jason sitting down on my left, helping himself to some supper.

“Sure,” I nodded.

“That’s good, ‘cause I could’ve sworn that the shadows on the opposite wall were growing and shrinking.”

“Why would that make me not OK. Shadows don’t affect me, it’s just weird lighting.”

“You sure, because you seemed to be focussing pretty hard on that wall and…”

“Fine!” I interrupted. “I was moving the shadows and look, I haven’t become transparent. Go tell Will if you like but I promise you he is making a fuss over nothing, I’m totally fine, I could summon a whole army if I wanted to!”

“Cool.” Jason nodded and continued.

“Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow. “All this ranting that people have been doing about me needing to recover and now I control shadows and all you say is ‘cool’?”

“Yep” Jason grinned, popping the ‘p’ like Percy always does. “I trust you, mate. If you say you’re strong enough then I’m sure you are, you’re not about to kill yourself, probably too scared of what Will and Hazel would do if you did, your dead soul would seriously get no rest.” I laughed slightly at that and started to leave the table but Jason grabbed my shoulder and pushed me back down. I scowled at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know, no physical contact or I’ll get a face full of stygian iron net time we train but I am not letting you leave without eating at least as much as Hazel.”

“What the…” I tried to protest.

“Well you said you’ve got your strength back and I believe you but if your back to normal then you can start eating.”

“But why Hazel?”

“Because apart from you she eats the least. I mean technically you should be eating the same as Leo because he’s the closest to you in age and height but I thought I’d be nice and say someone with a slightly smaller appetite.”

“No way.” I shook my head.

“Yes way, either you eat as much as hazel, I tell Will or you have to eat as much as Percy.”

“Fine” I sighed putting 2 slices of pepperoni pizza on my plate. It would take me a week to eat the amount that Percy ate in a day so I thought I might as well eat something if it would make Jason shut up.

“Holy Hades!”Percy exclaimed as he sat down opposite. “Jason, is Nico alright? He’s eating!”

“Calm down Perce, he just needs energy. We’re all going to go train tonight. With powers.” Jason said.

Percy raised an eyebrow at the powers part but didn’t comment. “Well I guess I need energy too then, don’t I.” And with that he tipped the whole platter of pizza onto his plate and started heaping chips on as well.

 

**Draco’s POV**

 

“Hey, Draco” I smiled at Annabeth as she walked over to the Slytherin table at supper.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Good,” she looked around to check tat no one was listening in. “We’re training tonight if you want to join. We’ll start teaching you how to fight and stuff, we normally start learning aged 12 when we come to camp but we can start teaching you now.”

“I guess…” I was still a bit sceptical about the whole story with the Gods but I could hardly deny what my eyes had shown me with all of there powers. “Where are you going to train?”

“Probably the forest,” Annabeth shrugged. “There’s not really anywhere else we can go.”

“I think I might know somewhere,” I grinned.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

By 10 o’ clock we were all standing on the seventh floor next to the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy.

“Everyone here?” I asked earning nods from all 10 of the americans. “Cool”. And with that I started pacing. ‘I need a place wear we can train which you can only enter if you’re a goddess or demigod…’ On the third walk past, the door appeared in the wall as usual. “In hear,” I motioned, pushing the door open.

There were a few gasps when we entered, including from me. The room had become a clearing in a forest, you couldn’t see the ceiling, just a cloudy sky and there was a huge lake on one side. The ground was earthy and seemed really real. There were targets painted on a line of the trees and a table of weapons by the door.

“This is perfect, Draco.” Annabeth smiled. “Now come and choose a weapon and Percy and I will teach you how to use it.”

I picked a medium length sword made of a metal which Annabeth called Celestial Bronze. Annabeth had a dagger made of a white bone like looking material in her belt but she also picked up a sword and walked to the centre of the clearing where Percy was waiting with a… pen in his hand.

“Uhhh, I you not going to get a sword?” I asked.

“Haven’t you heard that the pen is mightier than the sword? I am living proof, having saved the world with just a pen, I can testify for their might and amazing…”

“Shut up Seaweed brain and take off the lid.” Now I really was confused, but when Percy finally sighed and took the lid off, to my amazement, it transformed into another celestial bronze sword.

For the next hour or so, Annabeth and Percy taught me the basics of sword fighting. I’d occasionally look around the room to see what everyone else was doing: Thalia and Frank were at the archery ranges; Calypso and Piper were fighting with daggers while Nico and Hazel were sword fighting on the other side of the clearing. Jason had a long golden spear and was fighting Leo who was armed with, as weird as it seemed, two heavy looking, silver hammers. By the end of the hour, I was tired and my arm hurt from holding the sword for too long but I felt like I’d improved.

“Good job.” Percy said, twisting his sword, now in pen form, round his fingers. I don’t think that he or Annabeth had even broken a sweat the whole time. I’m certain that they hadn’t even had to give 10% of their effort.

“Before we go,” I asked, wanting to know what more than 10% of their effort looked like. “Can I see you guys fight, or do you never fight each other properly.”

Annabeth laughed. “Trust me, I fight Percy more than all the monsters in the world put together. But we’ll mix ‘round partners a bit, I’ve fought Percy too many times now.” She smiled at him giving him a shove: “He’s becoming predictable!”

“Oi!”

“Pipes!” She called over to the edge of the clearing. “Draco wants to see some real fights, I’ll go against you, no powers?”

“Sure,” Piper said, stepping over. The two girls pulled out daggers and started circling each other.

With no warning, Annabeth lunged at Piper who blocked the attack. Piper feinted to the left and swiped with her right but Annabeth ducked under the dagger, swiping her leg round as she did so to try and take Piper’s feet out but Piper jumped, landing in a role. She took a stab at Annabeth but it was slightly slow, allowing Annabeth to twist her wrist around so that Piper’s dagger fell to the ground. In a flash, Annabeth’s dagger was at the other girl’s throat. Her eyes were stony for about a second before she laughed and picked up Piper’s dagger.

“As victor,” Annabeth nudged Piper. “I pick Thalia and Frank for the next fight.”

“Powers or not?” Thalia asked, as a gas canister form her rucksack expanded into a long silver spear.

“Powers.” Frank shrugged, notching an arrow into his bow.

Thalia lunged almost straight away, just as Frank let loose the arrow. The arrow headed straight for Thalia and I thought it was going to hit but she threw up her wrist causing a huge silver shield to spring out of a bracelet she was wearing. The fake sky began to rumble with thunder and a bolt of lighting shot down towards Frank who jumped out of the way, transforming into an Eagle as he did so to avoid electrocution. Frank the eagle circled over head a few times, avoiding a shower of arrows from the huntress below. Suddenly, Frank began to plummet, transforming into a wolf just as he neared the ground and pinning Thalia under a ginormous paw. Thalia tried to push him off but the wolf snarled, Thalia snarled right back but dropped her spear to her side in a sign of defeat. Frank shifted back to human form and held out his hand to pull her up.

“You fight pretty well…” she said taking his hand “…for a boy!”

Frank laughed. “I choose Hazel versus Calypso next, with powers!”

“Well this is going to be confusing to watch.” Leo grimaced.

I didn’t know what he meant but I soon found out. The two girls kept changing the whole room, it was impossible to focus on what it was meant to look like. In amongst the changing landscape, they were fighting sword on dagger. One minute they appeared to be in a cave and the next they were on a sandy island. Eventually Calypso backed Hazel into an invisible wall and pinned her there, it looked like she’d won but suddenly the ground exploded under Calypso’s feet, sending her flying as chunks of gold erupted out of the ground. By the time the ground settled and Calypso stood up, Hazel and both weapons and a huge grin.

“You win!” Calypso smiled. “So who’s going next?”

“Ummm,” Hazel looked over the remaining four people thoughtfully. “Leo and Nico.”

“No way,” Leo shook his head. “Not happening. He might suck my soul out with that creepy sword if I don’t get out of the way quick enough.”

Nico examined his sword in the light and waves of darkness seemed to role off it: “Don’t tempt me Valdez,” he smiled. Leo looked like he was going to faint.

“Fine, Leo and Percy then, Jason can face my brother and his scary soul-sucking stygian iron.” Everyone laughed.

“So Nico’s too scary but I’m not?” Percy pouted. “Powers or not, Leo?”

“Powers, of course. Unless your scared of the flames!”

“Weren’t you ever taught that water kills fire?”

“We’ll see about that barnacle face!”

“I’m sure we will repair-boy.”

Leo’s hands lit up and he through a huge fireball at Percy who pulled a wall of water in front of himself. Using the water as a shield, Percy ran at Leo, uncapping his sword and bringing it around in an arch. Leo grabbed a hammer from his tool belt to block Percy’s hit. Water started wrapping around Leo but it kept turning to Steam if it got to close. Bases on their powers, they seemed pretty matched but Percy was faster. It was such a small advantage but I could see that it was taking all of Leo’s concentration to keep up, so much of his concentration that he didn’t notice that Percy was pushing him towards the lake until it was too late: the water swallowed him up and a watery hand passed his hammer and tool belt out to Percy who then released a soaking wet Leo from the water prison. Leo was about to throw another fire ball when he noticed the grinning Percy whose sword was pointing right at his heart.

“Fire beats water then?” He grinned.

“I guess it does this time then.” Leo agreed

“Well, I don’t have much of a choice for the next fight. Ladies and Gentlemen, demigods and deities,” he nodded at Calypso, “for our final act this evening, I would like to welcome to the stage Jason Grace and Nico di Angelo!” Percy backed away applauding as Jason and Nico stepped into the clearing.

 

**Jason’s POV**

 

“Powers?” Nico asked.

“If you’re sure you can, because I am not going to be the one who tells camp if you die.” I said it as a joke and I really did trust his judgement but a small bit of me was still worried that he’d just melt away the second he tried to summon a skeleton

“I can handle myself, you just make sure you don’t get your soul eaten as Leo was so worried about.” I laughed and pulledIvlivs out of my pocket, I flipped it and caught it in mid air as it transformed into a sword

I didn’t know Nico’s fighting style as well as I knew the others because he mainly used to train on his own, fighting skeletons and ghosts and didn’t like it when people watched him. I decided to just charge and see what happened. I hadn’t expected Nico to use his powers straight away so I was surprised when he dropped to the floor, plunging his sword into the ground. The ground began to shake, opening up in front of me, releasing an army of skeletons.

“You can’t just get them to fight all of it for you!” I protested. “I’ll be exhausted and it won’t be a fair fight.”

“You said we could use powers so I am, don’t worry, I’m using up energy too.”

I tried to send a bolt of lightning at where I guessed Nico was but he just laughed so I assumed I’d missed. I didn’t know how many skeletons the room would be able to release because it was only pretending to be a forest so possibly had an unlimited supply of bones beneath it. Luckily they eventually stopped forming and I sent out a gust of wind which ripped apart the few which were still standing. But when the skeletons were gone, so was Nico. I looked around the room but the others seemed just as confused as I was. As I was turning, I felt something cold brush my neck.

“Dead,” Nico said from behind me.

I flipped Ivlivs back into a coin: “Nice one!” I grinned, “Now would you please move your sword before it absorbs my soul!”

Nico laughed and hung it back by his side: “Well I told you I was strong enough to use my powers again without melting into a puddle of shadows.”

“Let’s all just mutually agree,” Piper said as we all started leaving the room. “To not tell Will though, I still don’t think he’d approve.”

“Agreed,” Leo said. “Now I bet none of you can beat me back to the common room. Bye Draco!” And with that he took off running in the direction of the Gryffindor common room.

“If he wins this then we’ll never here the end of it.” Percy sighed. “Night, Draco.” And with that he took off after Leo at an alarmingly fast pace.

“Well, we all know the best way to beat him.” Nico grinned as he stepped into the shadow of a statue. “Sleep well everyone.” And with that the darkness swallowed him and he disappeared.


	20. Love and Control

**Leo’s POV**

 

Holidays were great. I mean obviously magical school is better than normal school but none of it is really as good as camp. It was the end of the Christmas holidays and we were preparing to take an international portkey back to Hogwarts (a method of transport which I would happily never use again in my whole life).

We’d all done presents for Christmas day but the best thing had been the nativity play. Annabeth was Mary because apparently Mary has to have blonde hair which meant that Percy had to be Joseph because he wouldn’t let anyone else even pretend to be Annabeth’s husband. I mean they were pretty normal but Jason was Gabriel so he could actually fly in with Piper (who was the singing part of the duo) and Frank was the donkey, the camels and the sheep. Hazel was the king who gave gold, Calypso did the Frankincense (because no one else knows what it is) and we managed to bully Nico into putting on a crown and doing Myrr (apparently it’s got something to do with death). And I got to be a Shepard with Festus as my fire-breathing dragon-sheep.

Hermes came down a couple of days later and said we’d depicted the Nativity perfectly and it had all happened exactly as we’d acted. I think I might get a career as an actor now.

Nah

“Are you seriously taking Festus to Hogwarts with us.” Calypso asked from next to me, where we were standing by the plate which was going to take us half way around the world (see how ridiculous it sounds).

“Of course, no one else plays with him at camp so I’m going to put him in that cool room that Draco showed and then he’ll have company.”

“Can’t he just stay with Mrs O’Leary,” Calypso sounded bit exasperated but she was smiling.

“Oh come on, love. Consider it a favour for me saving you.” I tried.

“I don’t owe you any favours, if I owe anyone then it’s Festus and…”

“Exactly.” Now I’d definitely won. “So you want him to be happy and come to Hogwarts with us.”

“Oh, shut up!” Calypso laughed but didn’t complain any more about me bringing the big golden suitcase which was Festus.

“For his father’s sake, where is Nico?” Jason asked, checking his watch. “This thing is leaving any minute now.”

“Speak of the devil.” Piper said as Nico suddenly appeared next to Jason.

Everyone grabbed hold of the plate just in time as it began to glow and we began to spin into oblivion.

 

 

“And where were you.” Jason asked, turning to Nico once we’d landed just outside Hogwarts.

“Saying bye to Will to save myself from another Howler. Sorry I didn’t check with you first, mother.”

“Fine, I guess that’s a reasonable excuse.” Jason was trying to keep a strict face but I could see that he was just happy that Nico might have finally accepted he had friends. Jason was very protective of the son of Hades.

“So, one term down and no ‘war to make worlds end’ as of yet.” Percy said, breaking up Nico and Jason’s impromptu staring contest. “Let’s hope this one is just as successful.” And with that we all stating making our way to the front hall where the start of term feast was just about to begin.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

**3rd Person (First Wednesday back at school)**

 

“Right then class.” Professor Cielo said from behind his desk. “This is another spell which some of you did but I’m not sure all of you managed it at the time. Today we’re going to be working on resisting the imperius curse.” Murmurs broke out around the room but the professor silenced them immediately. “I know what some of you are thinking but I have checked with Professor McGonagall and she says it’s fine as long as I don’t teach you how to use the actually curse and all of this is optional. For those of you who don’t know, could someone please explain what the imperius curse is. Yes, Miss Granger.”

“The imperius is one of the three unforgivables. It allows the caster to control the victim, bending their will. It was used a lot during the war and many death eaters used it as an excuse for what they had done claiming that their actions were not their own. It is unique among the unforgivable because it is the only one which doesn’t cause bodily harm to the victim and can be resisted” Hermione recited very quickly.

“Very good, 10 points for Gryffindor. So the way that this lesson will proceed, much as I think it did in your fourth year, is that I will put each of you in turn under the imperius curse and you will have to resist. As I said earlier, this is entirely optional and I will not force anyone to do it. Those who wish to try, form a queue down the centre of the room and those who don’t, take a chair on the side. The curse I am casting will be a weakened version as the full one will probably be too hard for most of you to resist.”

About a quarter of the class went and sat at the sides but the rest remained in the middle of the room and began to form a line.

Harry was at the front and threw the curse off almost immediately. Ron was a little bit slower and almost climbed onto the chair in the middle of the room but managed to stop himself and Hermione was much the same.

Seamus and Dean, however, weren’t as successful. Dean managed a spectacular backflip off of the table and Seamus performed a perfect Irish Jig whilst humming ‘the Lord of the Dance’.

Neville didn’t manage to throw the curse off very quickly but he didn’t do anything. He just stood still for a few minutes with a look of extreme concentration as if he was arguing with the voice in his head before he finally went to sit down having regained control of himself.

Piper was the fastest by far. She claimed it didn’t affect her at all and was just like charm speak which seemed a bit unfair to the others.

Leo was next: ‘throw a fire ball in the air’ the voice in his head urged.

‘Sounds fun, OK’. Leo thought. ‘Actually, no, the whole point is I’m not meant to do what you say, so no.’

‘Throw a fireball in the air’ the voice said more forcefully.

‘Not happening mate,’ Leo replied and with a final thought threw off the curse.

The rest of the lesson continued in the same way. All of the demigods and most of the wizards managed to throw off the curse eventually and those who didn’t provided a good source of entertainment for the rest of the class.

“Right, that’s it.” The professor said, checking his watch. “Well done everyone, good practical skills but we didn’t cover any theory so to make up for that I want2000 words or more on the unforgivable focusing mainly on the imperious on my desk by next week. And before any of you get big headed, remember that I was going easy on you, some compulsions are much harder to break.”

 

**∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞**

 

**Annabeth’s POV**

 

Thank the Gods it was Friday. I’d forgotten how tiring school could be. We’d only been back a week and I was already so exhausted that I hardly managed to change into my pyjamas before I fell into bed, falling asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.

 

_I was walking through a field hand in hand with Percy, he'd had a bag slung over one shoulder and we were talking and laughing and it was bliss._

_Eventually Percy stopped and pulled a picnic rug out of his bag so that we could sit down. Everything was perfect: the grass was soft and the birds were singing; the sun was shining but the day wasn’t uncomfortably hot yet._

_“I wish this was real,” I sighed as I rested my head on Percy’s shoulder. “I wish this was real and we could just stay like this forever.”_

_“Well, they do say that if you wake up during a dream you can preserve the state you were last in.”_

_“You’re making that up!” I laughed._

_“No I’m not!” He replied in mock offence. “Someone from the Hypnos cabin told me. I mean obviously you don’t like wake up in a field but you can preserve your mental state.”_

_“Than pinch me. I’ll gladly stay this happy forever.”_

_He laughed: “But if you woke up now you’d miss this.” And with that he leaned down and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his kneck, breathing him in: warm sand and sea breeze and everything I loved. I pulled away, smiling at him but the face smiling down at me wasn’t Percy’s any more, it was Jason._

_“Come here, darling.” He smiled, putting an arm around me. I pushed his arm off and suddenly I was sitting next to Frank_

_“You’re a great kisser you know.” Frank laughed._

_“Go away, what’s going on, go away.” I shouted giving him a shove. He fell over and when he sat back up, Leo was in his place._

_“Oh, don’t be like that, love. You know all the ladies love Leo.”_

_“No!” I half shouted. “I don’t. I love…”_

_“Me?” Ron suggested from where Leo had just been._

_“No, no not you. I love… Oh for Gods sake someone please pinch me, just wake me up.”_

_“If you insist.” Harry smiled next to me on the picnic rug. “Just one more kiss before we part.” He started leaning towards me…_

 

I sat bolt upright in the dorm. I checked my watch, it was 2 in the morning. I didn’t want to go back to sleep so I grabbed some parchment and a pen from my bedside table and quietly headed down stairs to the common room.

I decided to work on my DADA essay, as it was the longest piece of homework I had left. I stared down at the blank piece of parchment in front of me. I picked up my quill, dipped it in the ink and then just placed it back down on the desk. Leaning backward into my chair, I placed my chin in my hands and sighed. It was just useless trying to work, how could I concentrate when I was thinking about him. And I couldn’t stop thinking about him after that stupid dream

I stared into space, day dreaming slightly, I know it’s unlike me but how could I help it. I could just picture him sitting opposite me laughing. Everything about him was perfect: All the stuff he’d gone through and come out the other side of, still sane and able to have a laugh; the way nobody realised quite how clever he was; his extreme loyalty to his friends and general kindness. And on top of all of that he was handsome. I mean, everything about him, from his black hair which wouldn’t lie flat to his beautiful green eyes.

I just couldn’t help myself. I’m head over heels in love with him. I am in love with Harry Potter.


	21. Suspicion and Betrayal

**Percy’s POV (8 days after the last chapter)**

 

“Is it just me,” I asked at breakfast on Saturday. “Or has Annabeth been acting a bit… weirdly.”

“In what way?” Frank asked. It was just us 5 boys at our end of the table. The girls hadn’t arrived yet.

“I don’t know, just odd. It’s like she’s giving me the cold shoulder and ignoring me. Do you think I’ve done something wrong?” I’d been concerned about it for a few days now and had been wracking my brain for anything which I might have done to offend her but there just wasn’t anything that had happened.

“Doubt it,” Jason said thoughtfully. “And if you had done something wrong then you’d probably already have a black eye. I don’t think that Annabeth is the sort to keep these things quiet if somethings worrying her.”

“I guess but…”

“Look,” Nico pointed to the doors. “Here they come now, just ask her and get it over with. Then you have all weekend to sort it out.” I was going to say that it was easier said then done but thought better of it and decided to just go for it.

Annabeth sat down next to me and started helping herself to food without so much as a ‘good morning’ let alone a kiss.

“Morning, Wise Girl,” I smiled.

“Hmm?” She looked up from a book she was reading.

“I said good morning.” I explained.

“Oh, Morning,” She gave a quick smile and then returned to her book.

I gave Jason an ‘I told you so’ look but he just waved his hands telling me to continue talking. Honestly, I felt like we’d turned into a group of Aphrodite kids, gossiping over relationships. However, I didn’t have time to think about that now, I had to find out what was wrong.

“Look, Wise Girl, have I done something wrong?” I sighed.

“Wrong?” She asked. “No. Why?”

A weight lifted off my chest slightly. Well, at least she wasn’t offended. But if it wasn’t that then what could it be.

“It’s nothing.” I replied. “Well, it’s something, but it sounds stupid. I just felt like you were becoming a bit distant and wondered if I’d offended you, that’s all. Sorry.”

“No apology needed. I’m fine.” And then she went back to reading once again.

It wasn’t really the response I’d wanted. I guess I’d been hoping she’d at least give an explanation for why she was acting differently. A hug to show that everything really was all right between us, heck, even a proper smile would be enough right now. “Ok,” I said. “I love you.”

She didn’t even look up, just mumbled: “Cool.”

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

**Harry’s POV**

 

“What you doing?” Ginny asked, flopping down on the sofa opposite me in the common room.

“Homework.” I replied. Truth

“How’s it going?”

“Well.” I mumbled. Lie. In truth it was going awfully but I wasn’t surprised, my mind wasn’t on it.

“Do you want to go for a walk or go flying or something.” Ginny suggested. “The weather’s lovely.”

“Sorry, Gin, but I really need to finish this.” I motioned to the parchment in front of me which was pretty much blank. “Maybe some other time.”

“Ok.” She tried to smile but I could tell she was disappointed as she walked off. As bad as it sounds, though, I just didn’t care. I didn’t care that I’d disappointed her, I didn’t even really care about Ginny. All I could think about was Annabeth.

The way she walked, and smiled and laughed. The way she’d push her hair out of her face as if it wasn’t the most beautiful action anyone could perform. I wanted to ask her to Hogsmeade, I wanted to kiss her until everything else just vanished, I would happily never see another human again as long as I had her.

But Percy. Percy was a problem. She had a boyfriend already so she couldn’t love me back no matter how much I loved her. There were obviously love potions and charms but I wanted her to love me like I loved her, not some fake passion made by chemicals. I’d just have to get rid of Percy. But then again, if I killed him or hurt him she might just mourn him, it could take her months to date anyone again and I was on a time limit. If we didn’t start dating before the end of the year then I might never see her again.

But what if she already loved me? It was a possibility. I mean, I already technically have a girlfriend so there’s the possibility that she is having exactly the same argument with herself. After all, I am the boy who lived.

I decided to ask her. Tonight. I’d tell her how I feel and then she’d either feel the same in which case I’d be the happiest man alive or she wouldn’t and then I’d have to find another way or just wallow in my own shame and self pity.

 

That settled it, I was going to tell her how I felt. Even if I had to wait up in the common room all night just to catch her on her own, I would do it. I would do it tonight.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

**Annabeth’s POV**

 

I didn’t know what to tell Percy. I could tell that he knew something had changed, he just didn’t know what. I couldn’t just tell him that I didn’t care any more because that wasn’t totally true. Sure, I didn’t love him any more, not at all. But I didn’t want to destroy him. And telling him the truth would destroy him if I did it the wrong way. So I had to be careful.

But careful took such time. I just wanted to be with Harry and let the whole world know. I did still care about Percy, but I wasn’t sure if I cared about him enough to refuse a relationship with Harry if given a chance.

 

I slept fitfully that night. I was still thinking about Harry. He’d been sitting alone in the common room when I’d gone upstairs with Thalia and Calypso. He looked like he’d wanting to talk to me but, for the first time in ages, I’d felt shy and embarrassed and just went upstairs.

I woke up for about the millionth time and checked my watch. 5:13. I probably had enough time to try and get some more sleep, I still had over 2 hours until everyone else woke up even on a weekday and today was Sunday so I probably had even longer, but I didn’t have the strength of will to try.

I decided to go for a walk instead. I quietly got dressed into a pair of soft jeans and a t-shirt with the Colosseum on it. I bulled on my converse and grabbed a hoody off the back of the door as I began to make my way downstairs.

I was surprised to find that there was still a light on in the common room. I poked my head around the corner to see who else was awake at this hour.

My breath caught in my throat and my heart skipped a beat. Harry was lying in an arm chair, asleep. He was still in jeans and a T-shirt and he looked so peaceful, just lying there. Part of me wanted to sneak out and just let him rest but another part of me knew that this was my chance to talk to him. Even if I didn’t manage to say how I felt, even if he didn’t feel the same way, at least we could talk, just the two of us.

“Harry?” I asked softly, crouching down next to his chair. He stirred slightly but didn’t wake up. “Harry?” I tried again, a bit louder this time.

He sat bolt upright, alert but his gaze softened when he saw me. “Annabeth?” He asked. “What are you doing here.”

“Oh, I couldn’t sleep and was going to go for a walk but then I saw you sleeping here and…” I blushed slightly at how ridiculous it sounded and sat down in the chair opposite him. “I was wondering if you wanted to just have a chat?”

“I’d love that.” He smiled and sat down on the arm of my chair. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking recently and, I realised that…” he blushed and a small fire of hope lit in my stomach. Was there, perhaps, the possibility that he felt the same way about me as I did about him. “You see… well, I’m not very good at this sort of thing but…” He looked down at me. “You’re beautiful, you know that, don’t you?” The fire in my stomach roared as he tilted my chin up so I was looking straight at him. Then, slowly, tentatively, as if waiting for me to protest, he leaned down towards me.

I knew what was going to happen before it did. Our lips met and suddenly nothing else mattered. The kiss was slow and safe at first but I laced my fingers around his neck pulling him closer until everything else faded away and it was just him and me and all of eternity ahead of us.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

**Percy’s POV**

 

My New Year’s resolution was to get back into my old training schedule. It wasn’t that I was getting worse at fighting, I just wanted to make sure I was still getting better.

It was 5:30 and I was going to go to the room of requirements for my first early morning training session of the year. I got dressed as quietly as I could into jeans and my Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. I checked that riptide was in my jacket pocket and stuck my wand in the back pocket of my jeans as well.

I still hadn’t figured out what was wrong with Annabeth until I reached the bottom of the stairs leading into the common room. There, sitting on one of the common room chairs were Annabeth and Harry. But they weren’t just sitting, Hades no, they looked like thy were practically eating each others faces off.

I froze, emotions rolling over me: anger; betrayal; hurt; more anger. I wanted to break down and cry and shout and kill Harry bloody Potter. I’d never wanted to hurt someone so much in my life. My hatred for Gaea or Kronos or the minatour was nothing compared to how much I wanted to rip his head off. He was what was wrong with my Wise Girl. He’d drugged her or charmed her or something. I searched for any explanation of what was going on but it seemed that she was kissing him back as much as he was kissing her. I didn’t know what to do, I just had to make them stop because I couldn’t watch them for another second. I could’ve just run off, preceded it was some kind of crazy nightmare but I knew it wasn’t. I had to let them know I was here, had to show Harry freakin’ Potter what I thought of him. I marched up to them but they didn’t seem to notice so I just said the first thing which came to my mind:

“What the fuck is going on?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Chapter 22 - Realisations and Revelations**

 

**3rd Person POV**

 

“Jason!” Nico whisper-shouted, shaking the sun of Jupiter. “Jason wake up!!!”

“What the Hades, Nico?” Jason muttered as he checked his clock. “It’s not even 7:00 yet… and it’s a Sunday!!!”

“I’ve figured it out!”

“Figured what out?” Jason tried to shove the son of Hades away as he pulled the duvet over his eyes.

“I’ll explain but you need to come downstairs, I don’t want the wizards to hear.” Nico whispered as he started making his way to the door, looking behind to check that Jason was following.

“Fine, but this had better be good or we’ll soon find out which of the Big 3 actually has the most powerful children.” Jason reluctantly got out of bed and pulled a light blue t-shirt on over his pyjama trousers.

The common room was empty and Jason slumped down in the chair opposite Nico as soon as he reached the fireplace. “Proceed.” He gestured.

“It’s Professor Cielo, there’s something not right about him.” Nico said slowly.

“In what way?” Jason sounded mildly concerned through his tiredness.

“Well I was thinking about the two prophecies and something Percy said and…”

“Hold up,” Jason interrupted now looking interested. “Two prophecies?”

“Yeah. The Oracle’s and Trelawny’s.” Nico said quickly before continuing at the same fast pace. “Anyway, in the first lesson, Percy said that he thought the professor might be a legacy of Athena because he had grey eyes.”

“Grey eyes?” Jason had a confused look. “No his eyes were more…”

“Blue and Green and Brown at the same time?” Nico prompted.

“Yeah, kind of like…”

“Piper’s eyes?” The son of Hades suggested again. “And let me guess, he’s also Native American looking with tan skin and brown hair, right?”

“Right. So we see him the same, there’s just something wrong with Perce’s eye sight. Now that that’s sorted, I’m going back to bed.” Jason sounded relieved and began to stand up.

“Nope, I don’t see him at all like that but I guessed you did because what you described was basically a male version of Piper.” Nico explained.

“Oh…wow…that’s creepy but what does it mean?” Jason asked as he slumped back into the chair.

Nico ignored him. “But then there’s the name. None of you speak Italian so I’m pretty sure it’s aimed at me. His name is literally Horse Sky.”

“Eccentric parents?” Jason suggested with a shrug.

“Don’t think so.” Nico continued. “If the horse refers to Poseidon and the Sky refers to Apollo.”

“Zeus, surely.” Jason corrected. “Apollo would be Sun.”

“I thought that at first. But sun would be to obvious, it’s practically the same in Latin and one of you might notice. Also I would’ve noticed too quickly and…”

“Wait,” Jason held up a hand. “You’re talking in riddles and now I’m just confused. Will you please just give me one sentence which sums up what’s wrong with our DADA teacher.”

“Fine.” Nico retorted. “I think he’s actually Cupid.”

 

“You…wait…what?” Jason stuttered.

“It’s why we all see him differently, we see what we find attractive, the features of the person we like, love, have a crush on or however you want to phrase it.” Nico explained.

“So I saw the male equivalent of Piper and Percy saw Annabeth’s grey eyes…can I ask how you see him… obviously you don’t have to say?”

Nico shrugged. “Blonde hair, blue eyes.”

“Okaaaaay.” Jason looked awkward.

Nico suddenly realised what he’d said. “Don’t flatter yourself, Grace. We really are just friends. Anyway, I meant sky blue eyes not electric blue.”

“First of all, how can you be so bloody specific about the different shades of blue, there’s literally no difference. Secondly, who has sky blue eyes again…”

“Do I seriously have to spoon feed you the answers to everything? Remember I said the Sky bit referred to Apollo not Zeus and that Sun would be to obvious because ‘Sol’ would make me work it out to quickly. The name is a dig at me because we all know how much Cupid loves me from our first meeting. They’re my two… crushes. Poseidon for Percy and Apollo for…”

Realisation dawned on Jason’s face: “Wait… you and Will. Why didn’t you tell me? How long has this been going on for? How did I not know?”

Nico groaned. “And this is why I didn’t tell you. For your information there is no ‘me and Will’. Fine I like him but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel the same way. You didn’t know because it’s not important and it has not been ‘going on’ at all. We’re just friends and I’m fine with that, I don’t need to ruin things by asking and making him feel awkward because odds are that his preferences are slightly different from mine.” 

“You could at least ask whether or not he’s…”

“Shut up, Grace, you’re getting distracted. The point is that Cupid is ‘the one who two have met before’ from Trelwany’s prophecy. Percy has to be the water and that only leaves us to find out who the lightning is.”

“Cool, well worked out, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. What we can do something about, however, is finding out whether Will likes you as well or not. So, has he ever said anything or…”

Nico just rolled his eyes. “You are as bad as your girlfriend. No, your worse, you’re as bad as Drew was when she started reading Twilight!”

Jason grimaced. “First, Oi!” He started counting off on his fingers. “Second, what do you mean as bad as Piper, does she know?”

“First,” Nico mimicked. “You deserved it. Second, of course she knows, she’s a child of Aphrodite, she worked it out.”

“And she didn’t tell me?” Jason gasped in mock offence. “But if she could work that out then can’t she work out if Will likes you?”

Nico sighed, grabbed his wand from his back pocket and summoned a glass of water from the other side of the common room. “I think it’s easier if she knows if someone’s straight or… not.” Jason had noticed a long time ago how Nico never liked to bluntly describe himself as ‘gay’. He’d always assumed it was due to what had been socially acceptable when Nico was growing up but hd never wanted to ask

“Well then we ask Drew.” Jason was getting way to excited about this Nico thought. “Apparently she has perfect gaydar!”

Nico spat his water into Jason’s face. “What the hell!” Jason just laughed as he wiped the water away with the back of his hand. “First of all, there is no such thing as ‘gaydar’ or it wouldn’t have taken an unpleasant meeting with the God of love for you to find out that I wasn’t into girls. Secondly, where was Percy this morning?”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked.

“He wasn’t in the dorm when we came down.” Nico explained.

“Early morning training I think. He did mention it…”

“Styx!” Nico shouted as he stood up and began pacing.

“What is it this time?” Jason raised an eyebrow. “Just realised that Slughorn is actually Bachus?”

“No,” Nico mumbled as he continued to pace and then stopped. “I’ve got it!”

“Got what?”

“The lightning!”

“I thought that was obvious.” Jason laughed. “I mean, it’s either Thalia or me.”

“No it’s not.” Nico explained. “It’s Harry! His scar!”

“By Jove, Mr Holmes. How did you figure it out this time?” Jason asked in a vey bad impression of a 19th century English accent.

“‘All worlds must make a choice.’” Nico pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It has to be a wizard and a demigod otherwise it wouldn’t fit the prophecies.”

“So what,” Jason still seemed confused. “Harry and Perce are going to fight. Gods I feel sorry for Harry, he’s screwed. But what are they going to fight over. I mean they’ve got along really well so far.”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.” Nico said, walking over to the window. “But…” he paused as he looked outside. “Jason, I think you need to come and see this.”


	22. Realisations and Revelations

**3rd Person POV**

 

“Jason!” Nico whisper-shouted, shaking the sun of Jupiter. “Jason wake up!!!”

“What the Hades, Nico?” Jason muttered as he checked his clock. “It’s not even 7:00 yet… and it’s a Sunday!!!”

“I’ve figured it out!”

“Figured what out?” Jason tried to shove the son of Hades away as he pulled the duvet over his eyes.

“I’ll explain but you need to come downstairs, I don’t want the wizards to hear.” Nico whispered as he started making his way to the door, looking behind to check that Jason was following.

“Fine, but this had better be good or we’ll soon find out which of the Big 3 actually has the most powerful children.” Jason reluctantly got out of bed and pulled a light blue t-shirt on over his pyjama trousers.

The common room was empty and Jason slumped down in the chair opposite Nico as soon as he reached the fireplace. “Proceed.” He gestured.

“It’s Professor Cielo, there’s something not right about him.” Nico said slowly.

“In what way?” Jason sounded mildly concerned through his tiredness.

“Well I was thinking about the two prophecies and something Percy said and…”

“Hold up,” Jason interrupted now looking interested. “Two prophecies?”

“Yeah. The Oracle’s and Trelawny’s.” Nico said quickly before continuing at the same fast pace. “Anyway, in the first lesson, Percy said that he thought the professor might be a legacy of Athena because he had grey eyes.”

“Grey eyes?” Jason had a confused look. “No his eyes were more…”

“Blue and Green and Brown at the same time?” Nico prompted.

“Yeah, kind of like…”

“Piper’s eyes?” The son of Hades suggested again. “And let me guess, he’s also Native American looking with tan skin and brown hair, right?”

“Right. So we see him the same, there’s just something wrong with Perce’s eye sight. Now that that’s sorted, I’m going back to bed.” Jason sounded relieved and began to stand up.

“Nope, I don’t see him at all like that but I guessed you did because what you described was basically a male version of Piper.” Nico explained.

“Oh…wow…that’s creepy but what does it mean?” Jason asked as he slumped back into the chair.

Nico ignored him. “But then there’s the name. None of you speak Italian so I’m pretty sure it’s aimed at me. His name is literally Horse Sky.”

“Eccentric parents?” Jason suggested with a shrug.

“Don’t think so.” Nico continued. “If the horse refers to Poseidon and the Sky refers to Apollo.”

“Zeus, surely.” Jason corrected. “Apollo would be Sun.”

“I thought that at first. But sun would be to obvious, it’s practically the same in Latin and one of you might notice. Also I would’ve noticed too quickly and…”

“Wait,” Jason held up a hand. “You’re talking in riddles and now I’m just confused. Will you please just give me one sentence which sums up what’s wrong with our DADA teacher.”

“Fine.” Nico retorted. “I think he’s actually Cupid.”

 

“You…wait…what?” Jason stuttered.

“It’s why we all see him differently, we see what we find attractive, the features of the person we like, love, have a crush on or however you want to phrase it.” Nico explained.

“So I saw the male equivalent of Piper and Percy saw Annabeth’s grey eyes…can I ask how you see him… obviously you don’t have to say?”

Nico shrugged. “Blonde hair, blue eyes.”

“Okaaaaay.” Jason looked awkward.

Nico suddenly realised what he’d said. “Don’t flatter yourself, Grace. We really are just friends. Anyway, I meant sky blue eyes not electric blue.”

“First of all, how can you be so bloody specific about the different shades of blue, there’s literally no difference. Secondly, who has sky blue eyes again…”

“Do I seriously have to spoon feed you the answers to everything? Remember I said the Sky bit referred to Apollo not Zeus and that Sun would be to obvious because ‘Sol’ would make me work it out to quickly. The name is a dig at me because we all know how much Cupid loves me from our first meeting. They’re my two… crushes. Poseidon for Percy and Apollo for…”

Realisation dawned on Jason’s face: “Wait… you and Will. Why didn’t you tell me? How long has this been going on for? How did I not know?”

Nico groaned. “And this is why I didn’t tell you. For your information there is no ‘me and Will’. Fine I like him but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t feel the same way. You didn’t know because it’s not important and it has not been ‘going on’ at all. We’re just friends and I’m fine with that, I don’t need to ruin things by asking and making him feel awkward because odds are that his preferences are slightly different from mine.” 

“You could at least ask whether or not he’s…”

“Shut up, Grace, you’re getting distracted. The point is that Cupid is ‘the one who two have met before’ from Trelwany’s prophecy. Percy has to be the water and that only leaves us to find out who the lightning is.”

“Cool, well worked out, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. What we can do something about, however, is finding out whether Will likes you as well or not. So, has he ever said anything or…”

Nico just rolled his eyes. “You are as bad as your girlfriend. No, your worse, you’re as bad as Drew was when she started reading Twilight!”

Jason grimaced. “First, Oi!” He started counting off on his fingers. “Second, what do you mean as bad as Piper, does she know?”

“First,” Nico mimicked. “You deserved it. Second, of course she knows, she’s a child of Aphrodite, she worked it out.”

“And she didn’t tell me?” Jason gasped in mock offence. “But if she could work that out then can’t she work out if Will likes you?”

Nico sighed, grabbed his wand from his back pocket and summoned a glass of water from the other side of the common room. “I think it’s easier if she knows if someone’s straight or… not.” Jason had noticed a long time ago how Nico never liked to bluntly describe himself as ‘gay’. He’d always assumed it was due to what had been socially acceptable when Nico was growing up but hd never wanted to ask

“Well then we ask Drew.” Jason was getting way to excited about this Nico thought. “Apparently she has perfect gaydar!”

Nico spat his water into Jason’s face. “What the hell!” Jason just laughed as he wiped the water away with the back of his hand. “First of all, there is no such thing as ‘gaydar’ or it wouldn’t have taken an unpleasant meeting with the God of love for you to find out that I wasn’t into girls. Secondly, where was Percy this morning?”

“What do you mean?” Jason asked.

“He wasn’t in the dorm when we came down.” Nico explained.

“Early morning training I think. He did mention it…”

“Styx!” Nico shouted as he stood up and began pacing.

“What is it this time?” Jason raised an eyebrow. “Just realised that Slughorn is actually Bachus?”

“No,” Nico mumbled as he continued to pace and then stopped. “I’ve got it!”

“Got what?”

“The lightning!”

“I thought that was obvious.” Jason laughed. “I mean, it’s either Thalia or me.”

“No it’s not.” Nico explained. “It’s Harry! His scar!”

“By Jove, Mr Holmes. How did you figure it out this time?” Jason asked in a vey bad impression of a 19th century English accent.

“‘All worlds must make a choice.’” Nico pointed out as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It has to be a wizard and a demigod otherwise it wouldn’t fit the prophecies.”

“So what,” Jason still seemed confused. “Harry and Perce are going to fight. Gods I feel sorry for Harry, he’s screwed. But what are they going to fight over. I mean they’ve got along really well so far.”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.” Nico said, walking over to the window. “But…” he paused as he looked outside. “Jason, I think you need to come and see this.”


	23. Gossip and Torture

**3rd Person POV**

 

“Styx,” Jason breathed. “They’re going to kill each other!” And it looked like they were. What had started with simply shouting insults had quickly escalated. Harry had thrown the first punch, which Percy had easily blocked but it had been taken as a challenge nonetheless. Had the two boys been easily matched, it might’ve not gone further than punching, but Harry was much weaker than Percy in hand-to-hand combat and had to gain the upper hand the only way he knew how.

Magic.

What had started as words had now become a full blown fight between, arguably, the two most powerful teenagers on the planet.

“I’ll get Frank and Leo. Go get the girls.” Nico ordered. Jason didn’t move, just stayed stating out of the window. “Now!” Nico shouted, jarring Jason out of his daze and sending him flying (quite literally) up the girls staircase.

 

It was amazing how quickly the mention of a prophecy could get demigods out of bed. Within minutes, everyone was fully dressed and in the common room with their weapons. Jason gave them the quick version of the explanation which Nico had given him concerning the prophecy, before pointing out the fight which was still going on just outside the window.

“Holy Hades!” Leo breathed. “So much for an easy quest. What do we do?”

Nico stood up from the armchair he’d been in and began giving orders before Jason could even form a plan: “Hazel, Frank, you need to go and get Professor Cielo. We need to get him to break what he made. Piper, you stay here and contact your mum. See if she can help in the likely event that Cupid doesn’t do as he’s told. Leo and Calypso, you two need to take Festus and go to camp. Make Chiron aware of the situation, tell him not to alert the whole camp but just to be ready incase this turns into a bigger fight than just the two outside. Thalia, you do the same for the huntresses and the Romans.” Nico looked around at he others. “Everyone got that?” They all nodded and started running off in their separate directions to get what they needed.

“ What’s left for us to do then?” Jason shrugged.

“We,” Nico grimaced “Have to go outside and make sure those two don’t kill each other.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

“You know,” Jason mused as he jumped off a stair case which was just beginning to move. “I don’t think Will’s ever had a girlfriend, has he?”

“Neither did you two years ago,” Nico commented. “But that didn’t mean you liked guys instead.”

“I guess, but Will’s not a bad looking guy, if he was into girls then…”

“Are we really discussing this now!?” Nico yelled, slightly out of breath from trying to keep up with the much taller Jason.

“Seems as good a time as any.” Jason started running backwards to face Nico and let him catch up slightly.

“Look, if we all get through this and you can find some subtle way to phrase it, I give you full permission to ask Will yourself. As long as you shut up about it now!”

“Okay, okay.” Jason laughed, raising his hands in defeat. “But when it turns out he likes you…”

“If.” Nico corrected tersely.

“When.” Jason grinned. “When it turns out he likes you, I am so sending you two on a date.”

Nico groaned. “The only matchmaking you should be thinking about at the moment is getting Percy and Annabeth back together. If you keep going on about it then I’ll tell Drew that you’ve started shipping campers as well and then she’ll try and talk to you constantly about ‘Percabeth’ this and ‘Frazel’ that.”

“Fine.” Jason sighed. “I’ll shut up.” Then his eyes brightened. “But only if you can beat me outside!” And with that, he took off in a sudden burst of speed.

“Seriously?” Nico shouted after the retreating figure. “Our friend is fighting to death outside and you’re acting like a 2 year old.” Jason just laughed. “Honestly,” Nico sighed. “Some people will never learn!” He stepped into a patch of shadows and disappeared.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

Nico landed in the shadows underneath the door leading outside just as Jason entered the entrance hall.

“That is so cheating!” Jason shouted as he jogged the final distance.

“You have to be more specific next time.” Nico smirked. “We could race to the lake if… Styx!”

Jason followed Nico’s gaze and uttered a string of incoherent curses under his breath. “The stupid wizard.” He moaned. “Why did he let a son of Poseidon back him into a lake. Hurry, I’m not sure how much longer we’ve got to stop him.” Jason started running but Nico grabbed his wrist before he got to far and shadow travelled them both to a couple of metres away from their friend.

“Percy, stop this. Please!” Annabeth was crying, tears streaking down her cheeks. It was so rare that Annabeth cried about real life (crying over fiction was a regular occurrence) that Jason was quite taken a back. Percy, however didn’t seem to notice enough to stop. But he did spare her a quick glance over his shoulder.

This was all the advantage that Harry needed. “Expeliarmus!” He shouted and Percy’s wand went flying away into the lake. “Rule number one,” Harry recited smugly. “Constant vigilance! Either you leave now, peacefully or I’ll have to force you to.”

Harry pointed his wand threateningly but Percy just looked confused. “Why would I leave now, I have you right where I want you?”

Now Harry looked confused. “You’re wandless and therefore powerless. You simply can’t beat me when I’m armed.”

Percy started laughing. “I forgot how petty you wizards are. Constantly needing a stick to channel your powers. My powers however are far more extensive.” A huge hand started forming in the middle of the lake, reaching towards Harry. “In fact,” Percy continued with a sly grin, “you could say that they cover about 70% of the world.” As Harry turned, the hand wrapped around him, throwing him into the air before catching him and flicking his wand away to Percy.

“Percy, no!” Nico shouted running forward, but was thrown backwards when a wall of water solidified in thin air. Jason tried to fly over the wall but Percy had created a solid box of water currents around himself, Harry and Annabeth.

“Stay out of this,” Percy panted through gritted teeth. It was clearly taking all of his efforts to hold out his cousins. “And you!” Percy turned back to Harry. “You thought you could ever deserve her! You don’t know a single thing about her. How could you, you’ve only just met!”

“Of course I know about her!” Harry shouted, trying to shake himself free of the watery fist. “I know she’s smart, and beautiful and charming…”

“That’s not knowing. Those are observations, anyone could ‘know’ that. You don’t know the way her eyes light up when she talks about the subjects she loves; you don’t know how she’ll curl up on her window seat and not move until she’s finished the book she’s reading; You don’t now how she constantly has to push her curls out of her face when they fall out of her ponytail; You don’t know how she spent months learning to punch with her left to have the element of surprise in a fight.

“You see a pretty face, but do you know what I see? I see the girl I held up the sky for; the girl I gave up immortality for; the girl I fell into hell to save. Not because she needed saving, but because she didn’t have to do it alone. I see the woman I love so don’t pretend for a second, that you care for her or know her like I do.”

Harry just laughed. “Fine words, Jackson.” He spat. “But do you know what I do know about her. I know that, despite everything you’ve done, she loves me!”

Percy roared.

The ground began shaking and Harry’s smug façade faltered. “Stupid mortal!” Percy’s eyes were a dark abyss, all traces of the usual sea greed was gone. “You pissed off the wrong person. Oh, people always said I was powerful but they honestly had no idea.” The look on the son of Poseidon’s face was almost psychotic and there was nothing that Jason or Nico could do to stop him. “You see, Potter, I’ve been thinking lately about this new level of power and I sort of need someone to test it on. Someone I really hate.” Annabeth stepped forward to try and stop Percy but the walls of water just shifted to push her outside of them as well. “The thing is,” Percy continued as if nothing had happened. “I’ve been doing some reading and I found out that about 60% of the human body is made of water. Isn’t that interesting.” The gravity of what was about to happen was dawning on Harry and the fear was becoming clear on his face. “So I’ve recently discovered that I can freeze water…” Percy flicked his hands and the walls of water surrounding them solidified into ice. “But what I haven’t yet tried is the opposite. What if I could boil water, for instance… the water in your body, your blood.” Harry was frozen in fear. It was clear from his expression that he knew there was nothing he could do to change what was going to happen as the temperature within their bubble of ice began to increase…

 

“Can you get some cloud cover?” Nico asked Jason urgently.

“I don’t see how that’s going to help!” Jason shouted. If anything, we need heat to melt these bloody ice walls.”

“Just trust me, I need shadows. I don’t think I’m strong enough to pull them together myself and still manage a jump so please just get some damned clouds.”

The sky darkened almost immediately and when Jason turned back around, Nico had been transported inside the walls of ice.

 

Harry had regrown bones over night and been crucioed and tortured by death eaters, but nothing compared to the pain he felt in that moment. It felt like his skin was blistering all over, like he might explode at any moment and like his blood was actually boiling.

Percy was so concentrated on Harry that he barley noticed as Nico appeared next to him and raised his sword… 


	24. Captives and Bargaining

**3rd Person POV**

 

The walls of ice tumbled as Percy crumpled to the floor.

“You didn’t have to knock him out!” Jason groaned.

“Well what else did you expect me to do?” Nico retorted. “Hold him off while he was still conscious? You heard him going on about how powerful he was, he’s gone totally pysco and discovered new powers. Crazed and powerful: Not a combination I want to mess with.”

“Fair point.” Jason mused as he checked Percy’s pulse to make sure he was still alive. “Can you two knock it off?” He directed towards the lake. Annabeth had run over to help Harry who had been dropped by the water hand and the two were now locked together, kissing.

“What business is it of yours?” Harry retorted.

“You know,” Nico replied with a deadly calm which was far scarier then anyone’s anger: “For a guy who just got his ass handed to him on a silver plater by someone, your sure being pretty rude to the person who managed to knock out the one who almost killed you. Before you reply, maybe just think through what your chances would be if you ended up having to fight one of us?”

Harry backed off but Annabeth took a step forward: “And what if I were to defend him?” She asked confidently. “What then, hey?”

“Annabeth,” Jason said gently but firmly. “You’re being uncharacteristically stupid. There’s no way in Hades that you could beat us right now!”

“Oh really?” Annabeth huffed. “And why’s that? Because I’m a girl? Because I’ve got no powers? Honestly, you children of the big three are so stuck up about your powers! Take those away and what are you? A bunch of average sword fighters with no hope of beating anyone. You think you're so amazing and that your status means you could beat anyone. Percy’s the same when really…”

“No.” Jason interrupted. “It’s not because of powers. The Gods know you’ve managed to beat us all enough times already. And it’s certainly not because you’re a girl: like Thalia and Khione and Clarisse and even Gaia. No, you can’t beat us because, for the first time ever, you’ve left your dagger in the castle. And we both have swords. You’re brilliant at hand to hand combat but no even you are good enough to take out two guys with swords. Even if they are just stuck up, average, children of the big three who just so happen to have deadly powers.”

Annabeth quickly checked her belt in a moment of confusion at leaving her weapon behind. When she found that it was, indeed, not their, she made a disgruntled noise but stepped away from Jason.

“So what’s the plan now?” Jason asked, turning to Nico.

“Now,” Nico sighed. “We simply wait for Hazel and Frank to turn up with Cupid so he can sort this mess out.”

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

About quarter of an hour later, no one new had arrived. Percy was still out cold; Annabeth and Harry were talking softly by the lake and Jason and Nico were discussing ways in which to make Cupid do what they said.

Suddenly the ground started to shake and crumble causing Harry to jump back in shock as the Earth caved in revealing a tunnel. Inside the tunnel was Hazel with an annoyed looking Professor Cielo who was handcuffed and had a snake wrapped tightly around him, pinning his arms to his sides.

“Took you long enough!” Nico snapped with no real venom in his tone as he reached down to help his sister out. “What happened?”

“Well he didn’t really want to come with us.” Hazel said casually as she dragged the God out of the tunnel as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Luckily, Leo had given us some enchanted handcuffs which he designed to stop Gods from shifting forms. Gods know why he decided to design them but I’m glad he did. Frank’s there wrapped around him so we’ll still have him even if he ‘love travels’, or whatever kind of transport he uses, away.” The snake lifted its head and gave an amused hiss. “And finally, we took the tunnels because I can control them. It makes it easier to stop him running off and we didn’t want to take any risks.”

“Smart.” Jason nodded. “Now all we have to do is to get him to undo whatever spell he’s put on those 2.” He jerked his head towards Annabeth and Harry who were still holding hands and then turned to the Professor. “So, if you undo the enchantment then we’ll let you go. Otherwise, we’ll just have to keep you trapped”

“Threatening me, are you now?” Cupid smiled mischievously. “Did you not learn anything form our last encounter? I need to get something in return.”

“And you are,” Jason growled. “You get your freedom. Our friends get there free will back.”

“My freedom?” Cupid laughed. “No, no, no. Don’t flatter yourself. I’m getting that anyway.” Jason looked confused. “The meagre few years of your mortal lives can pass in the blink of an eye for me. I can simply wait until all of you are dropping dead from old age and then walk away from here. No. I need something which I want and couldn’t get otherwise. A present in exchange for my help in this matter.”

“Help!” Jason barked. “We wouldn’t need help if it wasn’t for you!”

“Granted.” Cupid replied, attempting to clean his nails with the handcuffs. “But it is for me and therefore you need my help.”

“Fine” Nico interrupted, cutting Jason off before he could say anything too stupid. “What do you want?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Cupid said innocently. “Entertainment, I suppose. Immortality can be an awful bore when there’s no wars going on. That’s what drew me to Hogwarts in the first place anyway.”

“You mean,” Jason half whispered, trying to contain his rage. “That you came here to break up two perfect relationships, simply for your own entertainment!”

“Of course not!” The god gasped in mock offence. “I’m not that cruel. No, Son of Jupiter, I came here mainly because of you and your little friend in black.” Jason and Nico spared a confused look and Cupid laughed. “You were such fun when you came to visit me and I thought I could have a bit of a laugh teasing young Nico, here. You know, force him to admit his undying love for Percy and then watch the ensuing embarrassment and shame, that sort of thing.”

There was a shocked silence in which Jason looked like he was going to explode. ‘Why didn’t you say you liked Percy?’ Hazel mouthed at her brother who just shook his head. Cupid noticed the exchange and turned to Nico: “You didn’t even tell your sister! Well Hazel, your big brother had a bit of a crush on our Saviour of Olympus here.” He pointed to where Percy was still on the ground. “Sadly, however, there’s no longer any fun to be had there because he decided to admit to his feelings and apparently doesn’t even have those feelings any more. So instead I decide to have a little fun with eh two dream couples. In their own defence, they were very hard to split apart. I’ve been trying since the beginning of the year but Harry’s emotions were very hard to shift and Annabeth’s were even harder. However, I’ve had millennia of practice so accomplished it eventually. After that it was just a matter of vamping up Percy’s chivalric passion so it out weighed his common sense which would have other wise held him back for reacting as he did. And then I could finally sit back ad admire my good work as the two tore them self apart. Genius, right?” Everyone just stared angrily. Cupid sighed, turning to Nico: “It’s a shame though. I could’ve made him like you if you hadn’t gotten over him. At least you had good taste though: nice cheek bones and those eyes! I mean, if I liked mortals I’d probably go for him too but…”

“Shut up!” Nico snapped. “As you correctly pointed out I no longer like Percy like that so your argument is completely invalid. There’s no secrets to be revealed any more: Jason, Frank, Hazel and all the rest of us here know which gender I like so your entertainment won’t work. There’s nothing more that you can do involving me.”

“Interesting,” Cupid mused, ignoring Jason as he asked what was interesting. “It seems, Nico di Angelo, that you have finally accepted yourself and learned that your friends accept you as well. They seem to even know that you have your eyes on Will as well. May I just add, another good choice: different build from Percy but still cute.” Nico looked like he was deciding whether he wanted to dissolve into the shadows or rip out Cupid’s throat. “I suppose…” Cupid paused as an idea seemed to dawn on him. “Yes! That’s it!” He turned to Jason. “I will tell you how to break the spell on your friends.”

“And what’s the payment?” Jason asked cautiously.

“No payment needed. I think I’ll earn my entertainment simply from the cure. It’s beautifully cliché, I know” Cupid laughed. “But sometimes I can’t help myself.”

“Just tell us already!” Hazel shouted

“True loves kiss.” The God said simply. “Oh, and you’ve got to tell your shapeshifting friend to release me before it happens. Don’t worry, I won’t run off, I want to see what will happen.”

Frank uncoiled from Cupid and stood up in human form again. “Easy,” he smirked and grabbed Hazel’s hand.

“Wait one minute,” Cupid interrupted before their lips could meet. “I haven’t finished. It’s got to be a first kiss and, unless I’m very much mistaken, you two have kissed before.”

“So you're telling me that we’ve got to recreate a Disney movie and get two people who’ve never kissed before to kiss… right now… and it’s got to be true loves kiss? Impossible!” Jason raged causing thunder to rumble over head.

“OK fine,” Cupid sighed. “True loves kiss is a bit far, you’re right. So it’s just got to be a first kiss. But they have to actually like each other, in a love kind of sense. It’s not like you can just kiss Hazel or anything even though you’ve never kissed before.”

“It’s still impossible.” Hazel sighed. “Everyone we know who likes someone has already kissed them as far as I’m aware.

“No they haven’t,” Nico muttered.

“What did you say?” Jason asked.

“I said no they haven’t, I mean… Just wait here.” And with that, he disappeared.

 

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The smell of strawberries was the first thing that hit him when he appeared.

Camp was the same as always. Nico assumed that Leo and Calypso hadn’t arrived yet, it would take hours to fly from America to England, even on Festus.

Nico looked around, gauging his surroundings to work out where he’d landed. He was just outside the infirmary. Exactly where he needed to be.

There were two daughters of Apollo just outside, reading in the sunshine. “Do you know if Will’s in there?” Nico asked, pointing to the infirmary.

“Probably,” said one of the girls. “He’s hardly left since the war, even after all of this time.”

“He’s probably busy though,” the second girl added. “Do you want us to leave a message?”

“No thanks.” Nico replied, already hurrying towards the infirmary doors. “This is important.”

Nico ran through the infirmary, quickly looking in all of the wards until he saw a familiar figure alone in one of the rooms, making a bed. Nico ran in but ended up tripping over a pile of sheets.

Will turned around at the noise and his face flashed from annoyed to amused before settling on confused. “What are you doing here, Nico? I thought you were on a quest?”

“I was,” Nico explained, untangling himself from the floor. “But we need you so I shadow travelled back to get you and before you say anything, I’m absolutely fine and my powers are fine and I haven’t melted into a puddle of shadows but I need you to come to Britain with me.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, but out of context this all sounds a bit random. Why me? And why Britain?”

Nico gave an annoyed sigh. “We don’t have time for this. It’s complicated and important and needs to happen now. The others are all in Britain, it’s where the school we’ve been at is, and it needs to be you because…I’ll explain when we get there.”

“Well… I need to check with Chiron and let someone else know so they can cover my shift but then I could probably manage Britain if you’re sure you can jump two people.”

Nico was getting more and more annoyed. He couldn’t risk explaining because then he’d loose his own nerve. He had to just follow his gut instinct. “Will,” he said gently. “It has to be now.” Nico stepped forwards towards the blonde son of Apollo, holding out his hand. “Do you trust me?”

Will hesitated for a second, looking around the infirmary and then nodded. “Yes,” he confirmed. “Yes, I trust you.” The second he touched Nico’s hand they both disappeared into shadows.

 

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“Where do you think he’s gone?” Frank asked. Nico had disappeared about 10 minutes before and he still wasn’t back.

“Don’t know,” Hazel sighed. “But I hope he’s all right, he has a habit of doing stupid and dangerous things sometimes.” She sniffed slightly and Frank wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug.

Jason was pacing. Nico was one of his best friends and, sure, he was unpredictable sometimes but this was a new record for most unpredictable thing ever. He just couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to one of his friends. Not after they’d all just managed to survive the war.

Cupid was sitting on the ground, humming to himself. He still hadn’t shifted back into his usually form and Jason found it disconcerting to look at him and see Piper’s eyes staring back. He checked his watch to see how long it had been when suddenly he felt something shift behind him.

Jason turned to see Nico standing there with a very confused looking Will Solace. Nico let go of Will and marched up to Cupid. “Do you swear on the over Styx that this will undo what you’ve done to Percy, Annabeth and Harry, immediately.”

“Yep.” The God replied.

“Say it in full.” Nico growled

“Fine,” Cupid sighed. “I swear on the River Styx that the thing I said earlier will undo everything which I’ve changed about Percy, Annabeth and Harry with immediate effect.”

“Good,” Nico replied, walking back over to Will.

Jason was going to ask what in Hades was going on when Will asked instead.

“I’ll explain later.” Nico said again. “Are you sure you trust me?”

“To the end of the line,” Will replied.

‘Please don’t let him hate me for this,’ Nico prayed silently, as he took a step closer to Will and kissed him.


	25. Kisses and Confusion

**3rd Person POV**

 

Nico had never been this stressed about anything in his life. He liked Will. He really liked Will and now he might ruin it so they couldn’t even be friends. But if it was the only way to save Percy and Annabeth then he’d do it.

In the few moments before their lips met, Nico was suddenly acutely aware of everything going on around them: the feel of Cupid watching him as he stepped closer; the confused look on Will’s face; the way his own heart stopped as he leaned forward and then nothing…just Will.

Nico didn’t know whether it would still work if it turned out that Will didn’t like him back. He didn’t know what constituted as a proper kiss. He wasn’t even really sure how to kiss someone properly…Styx, he hadn’t even thought that this was his first kiss.

Will froze and Nico felt like he’d died inside. He’d been wrong, Will didn’t feel the same way. Now Annabeth would still like Harry and Nico would’ve embarrassed himself and ruined what could’ve been a perfectly good friendship. He shouldn’t have let Jason get his hopes up, bets were that Will was straight anyway…

But then Will kissed back and it was like vanilla and sunshine and the first day of summer and Nico could just see Jason staring in shock out of the corner of his eye and normally he would’ve given anything to tease the son of Jupiter but right now, no one else mattered.

Nico had no idea how much time had passed before Will pulled away and Nico looked up to see the taller boy smiling down at him: “You could at least ask me out to dinner first, di Angelo.”

Nico laughed nervously but stopped when he heard Cupid applauding behind him: “Very nice!” The God said with a wolf whistle. “Honestly, Nico, I didn’t actually think you had it in you but I guess I don’t know everything, I’m hardly the God of prophecy…unlike someone’s soon to be father in law.” Nico choked on air and Cupid. “Just joking. Anyway, you held up your end of the deal so I’ll hold up mine.” He snapped his fingers and Percy and Annabeth also collapsed to the ground. Hazel screamed and Will ran to them, summoning a medical bag from thin air. “Oh calm down all of you!” Cupid bellowed. “They’ll all wake up and be totally normal, except possible Percy who will probably have a nasty headache from where you hit him but that has nothing to do with me. Now, if you’ll just release me, I’ll be off.”

Nico smirked as Cupid held up his handcuffed wrists: “I’m afraid that wasn’t part of the bargain, you should’ve been clearer.”

The God looked livid. “But you said you’d free me if I did what you said!”

“And you,” Jason countered, “said you wanted a different kind of payment. You’ve had your payment so now you can go. Try asking Hephaestus or someone else for help, even if we were feeling generous, we don’t have a key!”

“You’ll pay for this, you’ve underestimated my power for the last time.” Cupid began to glow but nothing happened. He roared in frustration and tried again.

“Didn’t we tell you?” Frank asked innocently. “They block all magic except transportation. So all you can do for now is go away and find someone else to help you”

The God looked like he was about to throw a tantrum but at the last minute he simply growled and disappeared.

 

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Will was extremely confused. First, Nico had randomly appeared in the infirmary and shadow-travelled him to Britain. Based on the weather Will assumed it was Scotland which was even weirder because apart from the 6 kilted men and there families who looked after the millions of sheep, no one actually lived in Scotland (except now it seemed that a whole school full of wizards lived there as wel). That, on its own would’ve been weird enough but then we they landed and Will had managed to stop his head spinning from the shadow travelling, there was a whole in the ground, Percy was knocked out, a strange man with handcuffs on was humming and Annabeth was kissing some random boy by a lake.

But none of this was anything compared to the shock that Will had gotten when Nico kissed him. He’d liked Nico since the moment he’d grudgingly entered the infirmary and over the days that Nico had been in there, Will had started to like him more and more. He hadn’t dared to think for a second that Nico would ever like him back, even as a friend. Nico hardly ever spoke to him and when he did it was only ever sarcastic comments and insults. So Will thought that it was perfectly reasonable of him to freeze in shock when Nico suddenly, randomly kissed him… in the middle of Scotland… in front of a total stranger… with absolutely no warning.

A million thoughts had passed through Will’s mind in that instant: was this some kind of joke? Was Nico some sort of homophobe who’d found out that Will was gay and was trying to out him to everybody? Or was there some chance that maybe, just maybe, Nico actually liked him back? Sure it didn’t explain the stranger or the suddenness or the fact that they were in Scotland but it would make sense. After all, Nico had actually written to him twice since he’d left for the quest and, although the letters were short, they were far from rude.

So, on the slight off chance that maybe Nico liked him, Will had kissed back.

When he pulled away, still not quite sure what was going on, Will had simply said the first thing to come into his head which had then lead to more confusing events. Te stranger was wolf whistling and applauding and then Annabeth and the other boy collapsed and then Jason and the stranger (who, judging by the conversation, appeared to be Cupid) started having a shouting match.

As Will checked on Annabeth and the boy with glasses, he listening in to the ensuing conversation between Cupid and the others: _“you held up your end of the deal” “You’ve had your payment”._ And then Cupid disappeared.

Will wasn’t sure what to think. He’d had a brief glimmer of hope that Nico’s kiss had been really but now it seemed that he’d just been used as some kind of bargaining chip.

As soon as he was certain that all of the unconscious people were all right, Will stormed over to Nico. “What the Hades what that?!” He half shouted. Any colour that was in Nico’s face drained and he stared at Will, stammering the starts of various excuses before simply staring at his shoes silently. “Well?” Will insisted. “ _you’ve had your payment!”_ he quoted. “What am I di Angelo? Some kind of pawn that you can just use to fulfil your bargains with the Gods?”

“Will, I…” Nico tried but Will interrupted.

“Take me back to camp.”

“Will…”

“Now!”

Jason gave Nico a sympathetic look as Nico grabbed Will’s arm and the darkness swallowed them up.

 

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Nico felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. He hadn’t even thought about how this would seem to Will, hadn’t really thought about what would have to happen past him kissing Will, that was a big enough hurdle to overcome in the first place. But he couldn’t just let Will walk away, he had to explain. So, instead of going to camp, he landed them in a clearing in the forbidden forest not far from where they’d just left.

“Where are we?” Will shouted as he looked around.

“Look,” Nico tried. “You have to let me explain.”

“I don’t need an explanation I can see exactly…”

“Please.” Nico interrupted. It wasn’t an order or a command, it was a plea. He was begging and Will saw that and paused.

“Fine,” Will said quietly. “I’ll listen, but if you dare lie to me…”

“I swear on the River Styx that I won’t lie to you during this explanation.” Nico said quickly. It was carefully phrased, not ‘never lie’ or ‘never lie to you’. Just over the course of this explanation but Will knew that he had to mean it. You couldn’t fake an oath .

“I’m listening.” Will said as he carefully sat down on a fallen tree trunk and Nico started talking.

 

Nico had never really thought about how far fetched the whole quest sounded until he was having to retell it. He’d just reached the part where they worked out that Professor Cielo looked different to each of them, like the person they loved when Nico paused. “He looked like you, Will.” Nico continued. “Cupid appeared to me, looking like you: Blonde hair, sky blue eyes… which is totally different from lightning blue so I swear I wasn’t mistaking you for Jason. I know you think this was just part of a deal and it partly was but it wasn’t just that. I’ve liked you for ages, really liked you. If you don’t believe me, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, then just ask Piper, she picked up on it months ago. And yes, the kiss was part of a bargain to free Annabeth and Harry but it had to be a proper kiss. A real kiss between two people who both liked each other and hadn’t kissed before. And I totally understand ifyou never want to see me again but I just didn’t want you to think that I simply had to kiss any random person for a dare. Gods sake, I don’t even know if you like me back, it could’ve been that only one person had to have feelings for the other. We didn’t really have time to go through the small print but…” There was an awkward silence and Nico turned away, feeling like he might break down if he looked at the son of Apollo for another second. “Please, Will, just say something. Even if it’s just ‘Fuck Off’. Please.”

More silence and then…

“He looked like you, you know,” Will murmured.

“What!” Nico spun around so fast that he almost fell over and it took all of Will’s strength not to laugh.

“Professor Cielo…Cupid…whatever he’s called,” Will explained. “He looked like you: messy black hair; nut-brown eyes…which are totally different from fussed brown so I know I’m not mistaking you for Frank.” Nico laughed slightly and Will smiled. “And yes, I’m pissed off that I was part of a bargain that I didn’t know about but since it was to save Percy and Annabeth, and I would’ve hardly believed you if you explained before hand…I think I can forgive you.” Relief flooded Nico’s face and Will laughed again. “As for the small print of the bargain. I’m assuming that both people had to have feelings for each other. Love’s a two way thing and Cupid, of all people, should know that.”

“Do you still want me to ask you out to dinner first?” Nico laughed, slightly returning to his usual self.

Will’s smile lit up his eyes as he laughed as well. “Dinner would be lovely.” And this time, it was Will who leaned in and started the kiss.


	26. Headaches and Dramatics

**3rd Person POV**

 

“Ughh, my head!” Percy moaned, beginning to sit up: “I feel like I’ve been hit by a brick.”

“You kind were, mate.” Jason laughed as he passed his friend a glass of water. Percy drained it in one and immediately looked a lot better.

“So I got hit with a brick?” Percy questioned. “What did I do and which God or Goddess do I need to apologise to?”

“It was just Nico,” Jason laughed again as if that explained everything. “And technically he hit you with the hilt of his sword but, in fairness to him, you kind of deserved it.”

“What happened? I don’t remem…” Percy paused, realisation dawning on him. “Styx! Wh…what happened? Where’s Annabeth? Does she still… Styx! I didn’t kill him did I? I, honestly Jason, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was seeing red and I just needed revenge and… I mean, obviously it’s her choice but… I remember being so angry when I saw them and… Styx!”

“Calm down,” Jason ordered, pushing Percy into a chair. “Annabeth is fine. Don’t know who she loves, as far as I’m aware, she’s still out cold. You didn’t kill Harry just scared him a bit. And it wasn’t your fault, you weren’t in control.”

Percy’s shoulders sagged in relief as he ran his hands through his hair. “Maybe it’s best if you just talk me through what happened.” He said, looking up. So Jason did.

He told him about Nico’s realisation and the fight and the powers and Nico knocking Percy out. He explained how Hazel and Frank caught Cupid and the bargain which they made and how Nico had fulfilled it and then disappeared.

“So…” Percy asked, “just to clarify, Nico showed actual emotion?”

“Yes.”

“In front of people?”

“Yes.”

“He kissed someone?”

“Yes!” Jason shouted, slightly exasperated. “I thought, we’d been through this. Geez, he obviously hit you on the head quite hard. You missed it because he’d knocked you out earlier and then Nico kissed Will and Cupid fixed everything and that knocked all three of you out again.”

“So where’s Nico now?”

Jason looked slightly concerned: “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know how Will took it. He demanded to be taken back to camp so Nico shadow travelled them away but I’m surprised he’s not back yet. I just hope it’s all right. Knowing him, he’s decided he’s worthless and has gone to have a happy meal while he wallows in his own self pity. He won’t admit it but I think he really does like Will and…”

Both boys turned at the sound of voices coming through the door: “No, I think you should just listen to what happened… Annabeth.” It was Hazel’s voice.

Barely a second later, the door burst open and a sobbing Annabeth threw herself at Percy. “I’m so sorry!” She whimpered into his shirt. “I don’t know why I did it. It was like charm speak, when you know you don’t want to do something but you do it anyway but it was so much stronger and…” she pulled away, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I totally understand if you’re mad with me, and maybe you never want to see me again but… I just hope we can still be friends.”

She held out her hand for Percy to shake but he just stared at it blankly for a second before pulling her into a hug. “I could never be mad at you Wise Girl,” he whispered into her hair. “None of it was your fault.”

“But I betrayed you,” she mumbled back. “Just like Trelwany said I would. I betrayed the one I love most and…”

“And I tried to kill someone, Annabeth.” Percy said, holding her at arms length to look her in the eye. “What I’m saying is that neither of us were ourselves. Now if you want to just be friends for now then I’m fine with that but I still love you and I will never leave you. Do you understand that, never. So if you’ll still have _me_ then I’m all yours.”

Annabeth looked up, still teary eyed but smiling. “Seaweed Brain.” She said simply and then, standing on her tiptoes, kissed him.

“What I don’t understand,” Jason said eventually. “Is why he choose us? I mean, there are loads of couples in this school so why you two? And why choose to change Annabeth’s emotions? I mean, he said it was really hard to stop you loving Percy,” Percy and Annabeth both smiled slightly. “Why not choose an easier option?”

“Because he wanted you to kill Harry,” a voice came from the shadows in the corner.

“Do you really have to always make these dramatic entrances,” came a second voice. “I mean what do you do, hang around in the shadows thinking of a good line to enter with.”

“Shut it, Sunshine!”

“Make me, Death Breath.”

“Right,” Jason interrupted. “If you two could just stop flirting long enough for Nico to explain then that would be great.”

Nico gave Jason a death stare and Will laughed. “Fine,” Nico said eventually, stepping forward. “Cupid said that he was bored without a war which suggests he wanted to start one. Best way to do that? Get a wizard to kill a demigod or vice versa. Harry was the best option to kill for the Wizards, there would’ve been uproar, by the same logic, Percy would’ve been a good demigod to kill.”

“So would any of us, though,” Annabeth commented. “We’re all ‘Heroes of Olympus’ or whatever the chosen title was in the end.”

“But it wasn’t just that,” Nico continued. “The opponents had to be reasonably well matched: if one was much stronger they’d be able to just knock the other out. It had to end up so the only way to end the fight was to kill your opponent. Based off that, any of us could’ve really worked but some people would work better than others.

“He couldn’t choose Jason and Piper because Cupid’s magic is similar to charm-speak. It wouldn’t affect a child of Aphrodite. Frank’s too peaceful, ironic for a child of Mars, he’d be too hard to get to fight. Not because he doesn’t love Hazel but, similarly to manipulating a child of Aphrodite in love, you can’t manipulate a child of Mars in battle. Calypso would be too complex as she’s a Goddess, it would throw up all sorts of weird rules. Thalia was out of the question because huntresses are immune to Cupid’s powers. So that just left Annabeth and Percy.

“Annabeth was the obvious option to fall in love with someone because it was Harry who would cause the biggest war. Also, it would’ve been impossible for Percy to betray Annabeth, not because he loves her more but because he’s far to loyal for his own good. Even the Gods can’t cancel out someones fatal floor. So Annabeth falls for Harry, Percy goes mad and tries to kill him. We knock him out before that could happen and I think everyone knows the rest. Make sense?”

“Guess so,” Jason said. “What we didn't get though is where the Hades you two disappeared to?”

“I needed to talk,” Will said simply, taking Nico’s hand.

“So, are you two… dating now?” Percy asked, noticing Will’s action.

“No!” Nico said quickly just as Will said: “Yes”.

Nico glared at him but Will just laughed. “What? You literally asked me out to dinner just now.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to shout that to everyone.”

“I can do what I like, I’m older than you.”

“I’m 87!” Nico shouted back

“Oh dear, I’m not sure my mum will approve of the age gap.” Will said mockingly.

“Well, I’m not sure my dad will approve of child of Apollo.”

“Well, I’m not sure…”

“Flirting!” Jason shouted over the top of them eventually.

“We’re not flirting!” The two boys said in unison.

“Whatever you say,” Percy laughed. “Just out of interest, where’s Harry? Is he still knocked out? And where are all of the others”

“Not sure if Harry’s still out,” Jason shrugged. “He’s with Hazel and Frank. I’d assume he’s woken up seeing as both of you have. They’re probably just explaining everything to him cause I bet he has a lot of questions like ‘how can Percy do magic without a wand?”

“Whoops,” Percy laughed guiltily.

“As for the others,” Jason continued. “Leo and Calypso were on there way to camp in case your little fight escalated into something bigger. I’ve IMed them to say everything cleared up and they’re on there way back. Thalia was going to do the same for the huntresses, I think she’s on her way back now as well. And Piper’s gone to explain everything to her mum, it’s worth a shot to see if the Gods can do something about Cupid.”

 

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“So…you’re the children of gods?” Ron asked tentatively.

“And goddesses,” Piper confirmed.

Everyone was back in the room of requirements (it was agreed that that was the least likely place to be disturbed). Harry had had a lot of questions but had insisted that Hermione, Ron and Ginny should be given answers as well.

“And who’s Draco’s parent again?” Harry asked.

“God of being a douche,” Ron muttered and Hermione shot him a ‘shut up’ look.

“Athena,” Draco said awkwardly. “Annabeth is my half-sister.”

The conversation was still moving painfully slowly. After managing to convince the four Gryffindors that Draco wasn’t actually a bad guy, it had then taken even longer to explain the concept of Demigods. Between Harry’s constant questions and Hermione’s interjections of what she’d read in books, the whole process had lasted nearly an hour. By the end of the explanations everyone was very bored: Percy had long ago decided that he couldn’t sit still for a moment longer and had taken to pacing whereas Thalia had simply conjured up a shooting range and was already on her 3rd quiver.

“So what are we doing now?” Ginny asked eventually.

“I guess we just continue with the year as normal and you guys forget that you’re sharing classes with the totally awesome children of a bunch of all powerful deities,” Leo suggested as he sent another round of tiny fire dragons after Percy’s water wolves.

“I don’t think Ginny means that, numbskull,” Piper sighed. “She means about Cupid, he can’t go unpunished. What he did was an attempted act of war, surely that breaks the God’s code about not starting wars with mortals?”

“He’s chained for eternity in unbreakable, magically suffocating chains. No one has a key and Dad’s not going to release him, he hates the guy. Can’t we just leave it at that?” Leo’s second round of dragons went out as the water around them suffocated them. However, they did manage to vaporise some of Percy’s wolves.

“And what if he broke free, sought vengeance and made Calypso fall in love with Percy again?”

“He isn’t bad looking is he?” Calypso laughed nudging Annabeth. “I think I could fall for him again…”

Percy carried on sending water animals towards Leo, utterly oblivious but Leo quickly let his animals die and put a protective arm around his girlfriend: “You’re right, Cupid needs to pay. What did you have in mind?”

Everyone laughed and Piper gave a knowing smile: “Mum and I have an idea.”


	27. Goodbye

**3rd Person POV**

 

“Not meaning to be rude, but are you sure this will work?” Jason asked cautiously.

Aphrodite gave a light, high-pitched laugh which Jason thought was rather annoying. He might have commented on if the offender wasn’t the mother of his girlfriend and an all powerful goddess who could make him fall in love with his own shadow. “Of course I’m sure, dear. I’m not denying my son’s power but he was always more like Ares than me. Oh he mastered the erotic love which drives people into battle as you’ve witnessed first hand but the eternal longing of true desire has always been more of my area.”

“So you’re just going to make Cupid fall in love with Narcissus? What if he just leaves and comes and seeks revenge?”

Piper sighed, Jason was definitely not getting the hang of the plan: “For the same reason that Narcissus doesn’t leave his pool side. This is obsessive desire, not just normal love.”

“What if Cupid breaks Narcissus’ curse?” Percy said thoughtfully. “Then they could both leave and come and seek revenge.”

“Because Narcisses’ curse was set by Nemesis and no one can break a curse from Nemesis one it’s been ruled fair,” Annabeth recited. “She keeps the law on Olympus and controls the punishments. Once it’s been confirmed, a punishment can’t be broken by anyone except Nemesis herself.”

“What about Echo?” Hazel said quietly. “It must be hard enough for her as it is but adding in Cupid? That’s just cruel.”

“I went to visit Echo the other day actually,” Aphrodite said cheerfully. “And she wasn’t staring at Narcissus. In fact she was with another young man who introduced himself as Peter. Now I may not be your father, Miss Levasque, but I can tell when someone has returned through the doors of death and this Peter, much like Echo, is not on his first life. My history is often a little rusty but if I am identifying him right then it seems it’s not his first life in which he’s loved the young lady, at least now she returns his affections.”

“Good for her,” Hazel smiled. “Shall we go find Cupid then?”

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

“You need all the allies you can get you oaf. Most people would pay good money to have me owing them a favour!”

Hephaestus just laughed: “And why would I need allies, Eros? There are no wars coming, we can all unite over the fun of seeing you chained.”

The smaller God snarled but then paused, an idea gleaming in his eyes: “I could make your wife fall in love with you! Surely that’s what every man wishes. Once I’m free, I can make sure she never so much as looks at that bastard Ares again she’d be…”

“Now, now, sweetie, don’t get ahead of yourself,” came a light voice from the door of the Olympian forges. “‘Phaestus isn’t stupid, he knows you have no power over me and has also long ago accepted that I won’t come near him until he changes out of those overalls, no matter what powers you possess. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Feeling’s mutual, ‘Dite. I can’t stand the amount of perfume you wear as well and you know it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have actual important work to be doing. Unlike some deities, my powers are useful for Olympus.” The blacksmith gave a sarcastic wave before disappearing in a burst of flames.

“On another note, sweetheart, you shouldn’t call your father names like that. You know it upsets him.” The Goddess smiled.

“What is it mum?” Cupid growled, folding his arms. He suddenly looked more like a spoiled teenager than an immortal, all powerful deity.

“You’re coming with me, so I can sort out this little mess you’ve gotten into.”

“And if I don’t want to go with you?”

Aphrodite gave a tinkly laugh: “Do you really think you’re in a position to argue right now, Popkin? Honestly, I thought we got through your rebellious phase over a century ago.” And with that, she grabbed her son’s arm and they both disappeared in a puff of pink smoke.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

 _‘All sorted. You’re welcome. A xxx’_ was all that was written on the piece of paper which fluttered down into the room of requirements.

“Well that was quick,” Ron muttered.

“Once Mum’s got something into her head, she’ll do whatever she can to accomplish it,” Piper muttered, passing the note to Leo who burnt it with one touch.

“So what are all of you doing now?” Hermione asked eventually

“Eat enough food to cover Mt Olympus. Sleep and then eat another mountain of food,” Percy answered dreamily, earning him a shove from Annabeth.

“You know she doesn’t mean that, Seaweed Brain. It seems like the quest’s over, we’re free to go back to camp if we want to.”

“You know, you’re welcome to stay here for the rest of the year though,” Hermione suggested. “We all still have N.E.W.Ts.”

“Not that we need them,” Ron muttered. “The ministry’s already offered us jobs but _someone_ insisted that qualifications are always necessary.” Hermione ignored him.

“There is no way we are sitting exams!” Leo, Percy and Thalia protested almost in unison.

“We could stay though,” Jason suggested. “We don’t have to take N.E.Whaever-they’re-calleds but we could still spend the last term learning magic. Besides, I’d feel bad if I ditched the quidditch team before the end of the season.” There was a chorus of murmured agreements and nodding heads. “That’s settled then, we’ll stay for the rest of the year - camp can wait a few months, America is hardly short of people.”

“Well after having my ass thoroughly handed to me in a fight,” Harry laughed at Percy’s apologetic grimace. “I was hoping that during your stay here, you could maybe teach us all a few things as well…”

 

∞∞∞∞∞ Long Time Skip (About 2 months) ∞∞∞∞∞

 

Harry pushed his hair out of his face, staring at the sword at his throat. After a minute, he grabbed the hand reaching down to him, allowing Draco to pull him up. “I almost got you that time didn’t I?”

“Almost,” Draco laughed.

“Remember to guard your left, Harry.” Percy pointed out, walking towards the pair. “And Draco, trust in your footing. If you’re tentative about it, it only makes you more likely to fall. But you’ve both improved so much.” And they had. Over the last term and a half, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Draco had all been learning to fight. Harry and Ron were swiftly becoming expert swordsmen while Ginny favoured daggers (Percy had left her training to Annabeth). Hermione, as it turned out, had amazing aim: spears, arrows, daggers; you name it, she could hit the bullseye. Thanks to his demigod blood, Draco had fighting instincts and was appearing skilled in all of the different fighting forms.

In return, they’d been teaching the demigods more about duelling.

Training had had to die down at the end of the year due to exams. Annabeth had insisted on taking all the same exams as Hermione: DADA; charms; transfiguration; potions; arithmancy and ancient runes. Draco took the same, excluding arithmancy. In the end, Percy decided to take a potions N.E.W.T while all of the others (including Harry and Ron, after a lot of time convincing Hermione) didn’t take any.

“So today’s the day,” Jason said, striding over from the neighbouring fighting ring. “Back home to Camp.”

“We still have the train journey to Kings Cross though?” Harry asked.

“‘Fraid not,” Percy shrugged. “We’ve got some pegasi waiting in the forest for us along with one weirdly fast horse. In fact, we should probably get going. Chiron said our bags have already been zapped back to camp or something.”

“I guess we’ll come see you off then,” Ginny shrugged.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

“Remember to stay in touch, all right.” Annabeth insisted. “If you remember to give the ow the blessing which I showed you then it will be able to get through the camp boarders safely.”

“Definitely,” Draco smiled. “We’re all going to miss you.”

“Are you certain you don’t want to come with us?” Annabeth asked. “Whatever happened in your past, you’re a demigod and will always have a place at Camp Half-Blood.”

“Thanks for the offer, but my place is here. I grew up a wizard and there are things I need to fix in the this world before I can leave and join yours.”

“We should be going,” Jason said eventually, checking his watch. “You all have to come visit Camp at some point. You welcomed us into your world so the least we can do is return the favour.”

“We’d love that,” Harry smiled, wrapping an arm around Ginny.

“I guess we’ll see you soon then,” Hermione added.

 

And so the 5 wizards waved as the 10 demigods were carried off into the sky towards their home. And they smiled because they knew that this was not goodbye, not forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading - I always love comments so please let me know what you think!


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